Winners for the annual Heritage Trail project were announced at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School this week. The project involves sophomore history students who go out and trek the African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard, and then do a research project which is judged. Projects fall into categories: writing, art, physical projects and electronic projects.
Longtime friends and followers of the late Dorothy West gathered on Saturday afternoon in the shade on a hot August day to pay tribute to the writer, who was the last surviving member of the Harlem renaissance, and to share memories.
On Thursday, Jan. 17 at 9:30 a.m. as part of the Island’s celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., St. Andrews Episcopal church on North Summer street in Edgartown will become the twentieth site on the African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard.
The church was the site of the first meetings in 1964 of the Martha’s Vineyard chapter of the NAACP. A bronze plaque will be unveiled honoring those citizens of all ethnic groups and from all walks of life who organized to participate in the building of a colorblind society.
On Saturday, August 16, the African American Heritage Trail, in collaboration with the W.E. Du Bois Institute at Harvard, will dedicate the former home of Dorothy West, Harlem Renaissance writer, as a site on the trail. All are invited.
The dedication is scheduled for 2 p.m., and at 5 p.m. a celebration of life and the creative achievements of the Highlands community will be celebrated at the Shearer Cottage on Rose Avenue in Oak Bluffs. The keynote speaker will be Professor Charles J. Ogletree of Harvard.
