John H. Bracey Jr., a member of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, greeted a lively crowd of students, faculty and town residents Thursday night to deliver the annual Black History Month keynote address.
Bracey’s talk, titled “The Souls of Black Folk in the 21st Century,” inaugurated a month-long series of lectures, celebrations and performances that are a part of a nationwide commemoration marking the publication centennial of W.E.B. DuBois’ influential book The Souls of Black Folk.
Bracey’s talk was roughly organized around the themes in DuBois’ work. “Souls was not designed as a book,” he said. “It was a series of essays conformed into a work of art.”
Bracey, a Washington, D.C. native and a lifetime member of the Association of African American Historians, hoped with his speech to re-emphasize DuBois’ assertion that there are better ways to live and that the problem of the twentieth century is “not an American problem, but a world problem, the problem of the color line.”
“Writing at a time when people thought black people were incapable of thought,” Bracey explained, “DuBois wrote against the notion that black people have no culture.”
“The burden of being an intellectual in a society that doesn’t value thought was DuBois’ circumstance,” Bracey said. “ The question is do you want to live in a world where the primary pursuit is of material wealth? Civilization based on pure material gain is not a way to happiness.”
Bracey echoed anti-war sentiments toward the end of his talk. “Throughout DuBois’ life he argued that one of the great dampers of the 20th century was war. Preparation for war is the cause of war,” he said.
Before ending, Bracey emphasized that DuBois was also criticized and persecuted for his anti-war, anti-nuclear arms views.
Monday night’s Convocation address by the distinguished preacher Calvin Taylor OC ’40 titled “This Nation Under God” preceded Mr. Bracey’s talk in the series, which includes a film series, major theater and dance productions, as well as academic and community activities.
The film series consists of several documentaries on African and African American history as well as two feature-length films.
The 1997 documentary Four Little Girls, showing on Feb. 19 in the Afrikan Heritage House at 7 pm, is Spike Lee’s work about the 1963 bombing of a Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which left four African American girls dead in a crime that wasn’t solved for thirty years.
A special screening of the Brazilian director Carlos Diegues’ Orfeu will be held Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Apollo Theater. The 1999 film recasts the Greek tragedy of the bard Orpheus and the nymph Eurydice in modern-day favelas, the dense hillside Black communities, of Rio during Carnival.
“This is a story about how a young Black man understands the nature of his choices,” notes Pamela Brooks, associate professor of African American Studies and Chair of the Black History Month Committee. “It is about his music and creativity; it is about the constant pressures from the outside to leave the constraints of the community while remaining of it; it is about identity, love, and loss.”
The Black History Month Committee is a voluntary team of faculty, staff and students that have been working since last fall to prepare this month’s events.
Other productions planned include performances of the musical The Wiz, based on the Wizard of Oz, Friday through Sunday in Hall Auditorium and a concert by the Oberlin College Black Musicians Guild at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Conservatory.
The month’s academic events revolve around the program’s theme of celebrating DuBois’ work. A panel discussion composed of faculty will gather in the Craig Lecture Hall on Monday night at seven to discuss the work explicitly. On Feb. 17 another panel titled “Spirituality in the Black Community” will bring out for discussion many of the issues within DuBois’ text.
“In my three years here every February has been extraordinary,” Rachel Beverly, Director of the Multicultural Resource Center, which co-sponsored the programs, said. “But, this year I am particularly excited about the intersection of the theme and the programs, that the programs focus on the importance of the work as well as the themes therein.”

Events in town include a free public lecture on DuBois’ work Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Oberlin Public Library by Frank Dobson, associate professor of English and director of Wright State University’s Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center.

“We are all really excited for these programs that both the college and town community can enjoy,” Beverly said.