The Du Bois Center opened in February 2006. Located just south of Main Street,
Great Barrington, it abuts the Mahaiwe Cemetery, where Du Bois buried his son
Burghardt (1899), first wife Nina (1950), and daughter Yolande (1961). A marker at the
Du Bois family gravesites, erected by the Great Barrington Historical Society, bears the
W.E.B. Du Bois quotation, “In 1950 the month of February had for me special meaning. I
was a widower. The wife of 53 years lay buried in the New England hills beside her firstborn
boy.” The Mahaiwe Cemetery is an essential point of entry into understanding Du
Bois’s life. Visitors from as far away as Africa, where Du Bois was buried, come to pay
their respects.
