Christine Perez McGhee, 98

Christine Perez McGhee, of Oak Bluffs, died on July 22, in the community she loved. She was 98 years old.

Christine was born in 1928, in Philadelphia, Penn., where she lived with her parents, Lorenzo Perez and Katharine Marks Perez and four sisters and brothers: Kathleen, Juan, Guillermo and Soledad.

After high school, she attended Temple University, before marrying Reginald D. McGhee, and moving to Detroit, Mich. The couple had two children, Reginald and Kathleen.

With her sister, Kathleen and her husband, Dr. Carleton Richards, the couple began to summer in the 1950s in the Highlands area of Oak Bluffs. Yearly visits continued until 1989 when Christine and her children purchased a home on Second Avenue following the death of her beloved husband.

Christine quickly adopted Island life and became a regular in a quilting group in the neighborhood, creating stunning patchwork quilts, raffled off at local fundraisiers. She was a faithful member of the Union Chapel, and a “porch sitter” with other Oak Bluffs residents, Grace Holman and Jerry Shavers, along the upper area of School Street.

Each summer Christine and her friends surveyed local passersby to extend a helping hand or a sympathetic ear. A recent stage play at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, Miss Maybelline’s Nocturnal Flights of Fancy, was inspired by Christine and her friends.

Known for her civil rights activism in Detroit, Christine and her husband continued the legacy of her husband’s family, Orsel and Minnie McGhee, who won a historic civil rights case in 1948 desegregating private housing, (Sipes v. McGhee,) with Thurgood Marshall as their attorney. Christine was a founding member of Detroit CORE, (Congress of Racial Equality), an activist in the fledgling Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), a founding member of the Societe of the Culturally Concerned, (the preservation of jazz), and a participant in community and local politics in the 1960s and 1970s.

She returned to college at Wayne State University in Detroit, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in education and Chinese history. She loved travel and visited Southeast Asia, Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean. With her love and curiosity about history and art, Christine became a docent at the Detroit Institute of Arts. People remember Christine for her love of teaching in Detroit’s inner city, her extensive personal library ranging from Greek mythology to the Harlem Renaissance, and her love of jazz.

She is survived by son, Reginald Laurance, (Mérida, Mexico,) daughter, Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, (Venice, Calif. and Oak Bluffs) and grandchildren, Khalil McGhee-Anderson, Loren Marino, Alison McGhee, Brian McGhee, and great granddaughters, Leila Marino and Sienna Mortarotti, her nephew, Lawrence Richards, his wife, Paula Richards and many others.