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James Weldon Johnson Foundation

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    • Mission & History
    • Board of Directors
  • James Weldon Johnson
    • Biography
    • Chronology
    • Works
  • Artist-in-Residence Program
    • About the Program
    • Meet the 2019 Artists
    • 2019 FELLOWS DINNER AND STUDIO TOURS
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    • 2018 ARTISTS RECEPTION AND STUDIO TOUR
    • 2017 Artists And Testimonials
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Couple to preserve Great Barrington writing cabin of civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson

July 8, 2019 Jill Jones
The cabin in which African American poet, lyricist and author James Weldon Johnson wrote in during the late 1920s and ‘30s on his property, Five Acres in Great Barrington, has not been renovated since is construction. The cabin has sustained heavy s…

The cabin in which African American poet, lyricist and author James Weldon Johnson wrote in during the late 1920s and ‘30s on his property, Five Acres in Great Barrington, has not been renovated since is construction. The cabin has sustained heavy structural damage and the current property owners, Jill Rosenberg-Jones and Rufus Jones, are working to raise money to restore the historic structure. STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN - THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE

Great Barrington - The bed is disintegrating and there's a hole in the floor. The original windows have continued to break into bits over the years, and so now they're boarded up with Plexiglas. A tarp was installed on the roof.

But it wasn't always like this in the cabin on a hill next to the Alford Brook. In the 1920s and '30s, it was where civil rights giant, songwriter and poet James Weldon Johnson wrote a collection of spiritual prose and sought peace and inspiration.

Now Rufus Jones and Jill Rosenberg-Jones are trying to save and preserve the cabin where Johnson most notably wrote "God's Trombones," which works the rhythm of the African American preacher's sermon. Read More

← Restoring a cabin and a legacy in the Berkshires, By MARTHA MERROW THE BOSTON GLOBE Simon’s Rock and James Weldon Johnson Foundation Residency Foster Creativity July-August 2018 →

James Weldon Johnson Foundation 2020