I was also remined of the work of my advisor in graduate school, Raoul Naroll, on research methods and missionary reports. Much concerned with trustworthiness of information (“anthropology is about trustworthty information for untrustworthy sources”), he once did a study comparing missionary and ethnographer reports on the same communities. He found there was usually much agreement and only when it came to kinship, which required technical knowledge, was the ethnographer data clearly fuller and the missionary data more prone to error. This is not surpising as Naroll also found in other research that ethnography was fuller and more accurate when the ethnographer spoke the indigenous language and spent more than a year in the field. Missionaries often did and continue to do both.

Although criticized for all sorts of bias -sexism, racism, classicism, colonialism – the best ethnography for me is the older ethnography because it is so rich in description and free of theoretical musings and searches for deep meaning. And because it is filled with the stories of people told in their own (translated) words. It troubles me to realize that several generations of anthropology students mostly read the short, standardized Holt, Rinehart ethnographies which surely introduced students to other places but at the expense of the detail which makes ethnography unique and special.

Du Bois also wrote about the various factions or social divisions in town, and the town remains divided in varoius ways today. As an anthropologist, I think I ought to be able to figure this out, but it is never is simple as it looks and political interests often cut acorss the divisions.

The center has a 10-minute video about it and its work. One frame was a photo of W. E. B. Du Bois on a visit to Charleston. Unfortunately, there was not time to dig around in the files for more on Du Bois.

The day also marked the publication of my church history: Sewing Cricles, Dime Suppers, and W. E. B. Du Bois: A History fo the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church. The title of the book is meant represent several themes that reappear over and over again through the church’s history. Sewing Circles is about the crucial role played by women in founding and maintaining the church. Dime Suppers is about the never-ending need to raise money to keep the doors open. And W. E. B. Du Bois (who attended and wrote about the church as a teenager) is about the church’s role in the national and local fight for freedom.

One of the important contributions of the church that was mentioned by several of those present on Saturday was its role as a home for young African American women who sometimes had no family here. It was older women of the church who filled the role of mother or aunt.

The launch event for the church history is on Oct 28 at 2pm at the Clinton Church in Great Barrington. It is also the church’s 136th anniversary celebration. Should be quite an event with readings of primary text from the book, comments by church members and friends, music by the Price Memorial (Pittsfield) AME Zion Choir and moving words from Rev. Esther Dozier.

African Americans in the region have been a very invisible “visible minority” for a long time. These new books and the trail have made them and their contributions much more visible.

One of the things he noted about GB was how there was little public display of wealth, despite consdierbale wealth disparity in town. Sitting in Pearl’s restuarant bar last evening observing the traffic and people flow up Railroad Street only a few feet from the building (now gone) where Du Bois once roomed with his mother, I wondered what he would make of the scene. Peopkle loaded dopwn with bags from trendy shops. The flow of Mercedes, BMWs, large SUVs and the ocassional Corvette. Few of any of these folks are locals. Most are toruists or second home owners and the old ways of GB seem to mean little to them. But one of the changes as GB become more and more a top tourist destination.