The Smithsonian Institution's new National Museum of African American Culture and History documents the story of the African American community in Oak Bluffs.

With whispers that a hundred more were waiting outside, they filled the hall, charged with the anticipation of hearing the charismatic new voice of the Democratic Party, United States Senatorial candidate from Illinois, Barack Obama, and listening as a panel of luminaries offered their views on Brown vs. Board of Education: Mission Accomplished?

The little white house behind shrubs at the corner of Cooke street and Tilton Way that, for more than three decades, has been a home away from home for household help in Edgartown, no longer will be welcoming the lonely next summer.

It was a few years before the Civil War that the incident here related took place. A large vessel in the lumbor-carrying trade was north-bound from Charlestown, South Carolina, and thereon a slave had concealed himself, hoping that when Boston was reached he would find an opportunity to gain his freedom. All went well until he was discovered by the captain, who thought that perhaps some of the ship's crew had guilty knowledge of his concealment or had even gone so far as to assist him in making his escape from a land of ceaseless toil, where there was naught for him but the lash, the slave-pen and the bloodhound.