The opinions were as varied as they were emphatic: There have been great opportunities lost in the area of civil rights. Poverty affects 43 per cent of all black children in the United States, the same proportion as it did the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Still, African-American people are better off than ever before, and a recent poll showed that most are, in fact, content.
Olive Tomlinson, Gretchen Tucker Underwood and Skip Finley shared memories of their Oak Bluffs childhoods, moving in the orbit of a tight-knit community of African American summer residents.
A groundbreaking project to record the oral histories of 5,000 African Americans has returned to the Vineyard, with more than three dozen videotaped interviews scheduled over two weeks.
The student of Vineyard history, at least such history as has been published, will recognize the fact that it was largely through the clergy that things were accomplished during the first hundred and fifty years of the Island’s existence as a colony and province. Not only did they preach the word of God to whites and Indians, but they worked energetically to promote various industries and acted as advisors in settling all manner of disputes which arose, besides writing wills and other legal documents and keeping records, in many cases, being the only ones now existing.
The Bradley Memorial Baptist Church of Oak Bluffs is happy now to be in possession of a new church home where services have been held the past three Sundays. The structure which stands opposite the Oak Bluffs town hall on Pequot avenue, was built by the First Baptist Church and I used for many years until this congregation disbanded and sold the property to the Odd Fellows Fraternity.
Of the 2,500 masters who captained whaling ships during three centuries of whaling, at least 63 were men of color, five with Martha’s Vineyard ties, Skip Finley told a rapt audience Wednesday night.
Dorothy West, the great African-American writer who turned 90 this summer, was the guest of honor at a spectacular birthday party Friday afternoon inside the Union Chapel. Well over 500 people gathered, including First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Miss West, a 50-year resident of Oak Bluffs, is the author of many short stories and two novels, and she is the sole remaining member of the Harlem Renaissance.
