Civil Rights museum opens in Great Barrington, Mass.

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15) Paul RobesonPaul Robeson was a renaissance man. An All-American college athlete and a Phi Beta Kappa member at Rutgers, Robeson, who graduated valedictorian, also finished law school but his entertainment career took off. Among his many contributions, he performed Negro spirituals on the concert stage to critical acclaim. An early film star as well, Robeson appeared in race films such as Oscar Micheaux’s 1925 film Body and Soul but is perhaps most well-known for the black cast film, The Emperor Jones, as well as the Hollywood production Show Boat. A co-founder of the International Committee on African Affairs (1937), Robeson was well traveled and very involved in world politics. In the United States, he lent his star power to many civil rights issues, including a crusade against lynching. His refusal to sign an affidavit declaring he was not a Communist made him one of the most famous Americans questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty)

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. (AP) — A museum focusing on early civil rights history in Western Massachusetts has opened.

The W.E.B. Du Bois Center in Great Barrington recently unveiled the Museum of Civil Rights Pioneers and will feature items related to the African-American experience in Berkshire County and the rest of the state.

The museum will display rare books and documents connected with civil rights icons like Frederick Douglass, performer Paul Robeson, writer Langston Hughes, and Great Barrington-born civil rights pioneer Du Bois. Highlights include Robeson’s contract to play Othello on Broadway and a Bible owned by Hughes.

Randy Weinstein, who runs the center and opened the museum, says he wanted to launch the museum on the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War.

Details on visiting the museum are at http://www.duboiscentergb.org/. Admission is $5 and the facility is scheduled to be open weekends 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.