“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.’’

— W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), in John Brown.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil-rights activist. Born and raised in Great Barrington, Mass., in The Berkshires, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, compared to most of America, and especially compared to the ruthless racism of the Jim Crow South.