A Vineyard designer and businesswoman was presented with the Martha’s Vineyard Youth Leadership’s Pat Gregory award at a ceremony last Friday at the Harbor View Hotel.

The lessons at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High school last Friday were centered on 1960s diner sit-ins and dormitory riots. And the teacher was civil rights pioneer, author and journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

At a schoolwide multicultural assembly hosted by the Martha’s Vineyard Youth Leadership Initiative, Ms. Hunter-Gault told stories from her youth and read from her recent book, To the Mountaintop, written for high school-aged students.