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Our Mission

Westside Legends looks to improve the quality of life and provide a better future for the West Side section of Pittsfield by implementing uplifting projects and programs in the community and working through and with diversity of all kinds.

Westside Legends Community Micro Grants

Westside Legends, Inc. (WSL) supported by Downtown Pittsfield Inc., EforAll look to collaborate with the offering of Community microgrants. These micro-grants will promote community safety, neighborhood quality-of-life enhancements, and help to increase youth promotive and protective factors in and around Pittsfield communities. To be considered for a micro-grant. Use the apply button on the right for new submissions.

Pictured below are previous grant awardees.

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Elizabeth Freeman 

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Berkshire County Black History Facts.

1781

Mum Bett Challenges Slavery

Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, owned Elizabeth Freeman (c. 1742 or 1744–1829) -- kno

1781

Mum Bett Challenges Slavery

Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, owned Elizabeth Freeman (c. 1742 or 1744–1829) -- known as both Mum Bett and Mumbet -- and her sister.

When Ashley’s wife struck at her sister with a hot kitchen shovel, Mum Bett successfully blocked the blow with her arm but remained scarred for life. She left the Ashley household and refused to return.

Hearing a reading of the Declaration of Independence and overhearing discussions of the new Massachusetts Constitution with its Declaration of Rights, Mum Bett went to attorney Theodore Sedgwick to seek the equality those documents promised and to claim her liberty under the law. At the conclusion of the 1781 trial, the jury set Elizabeth Freeman free and ordered Ashley to pay her 30 shillings and court costs.

wn as both Mum Bett and Mumbet -- and her sister.

When Ashley’s wife struck at her sister with a hot kitchen shovel, Mum Bett successfully blocked the blow with her arm but remained scarred for life. She left the Ashley household and refused to return.

Hearing a reading of the Declaration of Independence and overhearing discussions of the new Massachusetts Constitution with its Declaration of Rights, Mum Bett went to attorney Theodore Sedgwick to seek the equality those documents promised and to claim her liberty under the law. At the conclusion of the 1781 trial, the jury set Elizabeth Freeman free and ordered Ashley to pay her 30 shillings and court costs.

Learn more about Mum Bettt aka Elizabeth Freeman:


Westside Legends, NAACP Berkshires, R.O.P.E
Pittsfield
  present the 54TH INFANTRY MURAL
REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS

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