The Black Abundance mural, by artist Frances Chlöe Jones-Whitman, is located on the south side of the Adlib Building at the corner of Columbus Avenue and North Street. The mural was completed and unveiled to the public on June 17th, 2022. The mural is a Mount Rushmore depiction featuring local legends in the black community including: W.E.B. Dubois, Elizabeth Freeman, Samuel Harrison, Agrippa Hull, Frances Jones-Sneed, James Van Der Zee, and Stephanie Wilson. The artist says that the mural is an homage to those who are past and presently doing great things and are a symbol of Black Excellence.
Here are short profiles of those featured in the mural. The following Information about these local legends was found on https://www.blackpast.org/
WEB DuBois – Born in Great Barrington. W.E.B. Du Bois was an influential African American rights activist during the early 20th century. He co-founded the NAACP and wrote ‘The Souls of Black Folk.’ Scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895.
Elizabeth Freeman- Born into slavery in 1742. Elizabeth Freeman became the first African American woman to successfully file a lawsuit for freedom in the state of Massachusetts. Freeman worked as a healer, midwife, and nurse. After 20 years, she was able to buy her own house where she lived with her children. Elizabeth Freeman died on December 28, 1829 and was buried in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
James Van Der Zee- Born in Lenox in 1886 he became known for his photography during the Harlem Renaissance. As a young teenager he was gifted his first camera and started taking photographs of his family and of his local community. He would later move to New York City and become one of the most famous photographers in Harlem.
Samuel Harrison– Samuel Harrison was born into slavery. He eventually moved to Pittsfield in 1850 to become pastor of the Second Congregational Church. During the Civil War he fought for equal pay for blacks serving in the Union Army. He won and in June 1864 Congress granted equal pay for the 180,000 blacks who fought on the side of the North. He served as chaplain of the famed Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first all black infantry to fight in the Civil War.
Agrippa Hull – Born in Northampton 1795. Agrippa Hull was a free Black man who played an important role supporting the engineering department of the Continental Army. After the American victory in the Revolutionary War, Agrippa Hull returned to Massachusetts. He began working in the house of Theodore Sedgwick, the lawyer that led the charge outlawing slavery in that State. One of Hull’s coworkers in that home was Elizabeth Freeman, the very person who Sedgwick defended in his famous freedom suit.
Frances Jones-Sneed – Frances Jones-Sneed is professor of history and Director of Women’s Studies at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts. Jones-Sneed has taught and researched local history for over twenty years. She has lived in Williamstown, Massachusetts since 1993 and is co-director of the Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail Advisory Council that pioneered the first African American Heritage Trail in rural New England.
Stephanie Wilson– Born in Boston, Wilson attended high school in Pittsfield, MA. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science from Harvard University in 1988. She is a veteran of three spaceflights, STS-121 in 2006, STS-120 in 2007, and STS-131 in 2010 and has logged more than 42 days in space.
