Elizabeth "Mum Bett" Freeman: From Slavery to Freedom

Berkshire County has been home to many prominent African Americans, including W.E.B. DuBois, James Van Der Zee, and Elizabeth Freeman, the first enslaved African American woman to successfully file a lawsuit for freedom in Massachusetts. Her 1780 case set a precedent that led to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts a few years later. MCLA Professor Emerita Frances Jones-Sneed will tell Freeman’s story, its implications, and current efforts to share it widely, from a planned motion picture to a commemorative statue in Sheffield, joining one on view at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington DC.