Upcoming Events

A Time, a Place, Our Gaze: Re-framing the Subaltern showcases a collection of rare twentieth-century portraits, snapshots, and vernacular photographs of black people in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. These life-affirming images, taken by unknown black photographers, bring renewed visibility to the struggles, successes, and everyday interactions of Saint John’s black community from the 1920s to the early 1960s. This exhibition celebrates the profound impact of photographic self-representation for black communities by remembering the deep roots of black populations in an overlooked region of the diaspora. Sponsored by Slavery North.

The UMass Okanagan Week of Wellbeing (WoW) kicks off on February 9, 2026 for a week-long celebration in a cross-campus collaboration involving the Okanagan Wellbeing Collective, the Office of Equity and Inclusion, Student Affairs, Campus Life, and many others. The WoW will provide various opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to relax, connect, and recharge. Join us for this keynote event promoting wellbeing across campus with lightning presentations, lunch, and a keynote with Q&A by Allison Pugh, author of The Last Human Job. 

For its Annual Black Heritage Month Celebration, Commonwealth Honors College welcomes groundbreaking presenters who are working at the intersection of art praxis, racial justice, and the embodiment of change as pathways to liberation. 

This talk will tell the story of W. E. B. Du Bois's entry onto the international stage with his participation in the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, France. Traumatic events in his own life the year before had convinced Du Bois that he could no longer remain a 'calm, cool, and detached scientist' in the face of social injustice and racial violence. The exhibit which he curated for the Paris Exposition demonstrated for the first time his new-found commitment to public intellectual leadership.

“Dr. Du Bois has left us, but he has not died. The spirit of freedom is not buried in the grave of the valiant.” So said Martin Luther King Jr. on what would have been W. E. B. Du Bois’s 100th birthday. The spirit of Du Bois has given strength and purpose to scholars and advocates for social justice since his passing in 1963. His written work continues to inspire readers yearning for a keener insight into the troubled history of race in this country. It also provides intellectual and philosophical frameworks for understanding global affairs and the continued international struggle for equality. Du Bois’s life as an activist continues to provide a shining example for those struggling for justice in our own time.

This talk will describe how and why Du Bois remains such an important voice, despite being dead for over sixty years. It will explore the ways his life and words can help us find a way through our current moment of uncertainty and unrest. It will describe the work that is being done to promote and preserve his incredible legacy in places like Ghana, New York, Great Barrington, and right here at UMass Amherst.

The Speaker

Whitney Battle-Baptiste, is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst. A native of the Bronx, New York, Dr. Battle-Baptiste is an activist-scholar who sees the classroom and campus as a space to engage contemporary issues with a sensibility of the past. Her academic training is in Black study, history and historical archaeology. Her research critically engages the interconnectedness of race, gender, class, and sexuality through an archaeological lens. Her research sites include Andrew Jackson's Hermitage Plantation, the Abiel Smith School on Beacon Hill in Boston, the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite (or House of the Black Burghardts) in Great Barrington, MA, and a community-based heritage site at Millars Plantation, on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera. Her books include, Black Feminist Archaeology (2011), and W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America (2018), co-edited with Britt Rusert. She is currently completing the second edition of Black Feminist Archaeology with Routledge and co-edited a volume on new directions in research about W. E. B. Du Bois with University of UMass Press.

Dr. Battle-Baptiste has served as the Chair of the Black Advisory Council at UMass Amherst, President of the American Anthropological Association (2023-2025), and the 2024/2025 Charles Norton Memorial Lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America.

Keynote Lecture by Dr. Stefan M. Bradley, Charles Hamilton Houston 1915 Professor of Black Studies and History at Amherst College