Will Singleton was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and grew up on King Street. For college, he attended Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington D.C., and holds a doctorate from New York University. Will has taught history and worked in various administrative roles, including superintendent, in Washington, D.C. and New York.

Later in life, he returned to Pittsfield to help care for his father and was instrumental in restarting the NAACP in 2013. When he served as president, Will worked on shining a light on the lack of African-American employees in City Hall and local businesses.

As a kid, Will loved cowboy movies, and says: “Nobody was ever killed. The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers: they shot the gun out of your hand, and so I’m sure your hand would hurt if that happened, but there wasn’t this kind of lack of empathy for life, which we’ve lost in too many instances.”

The full audio of Will’s interview will be available soon from the Special Collections and University Archives at the UMass Amherst Libraries
For now, it is linked here:

 

A full transcript of the interview will be available soon