Voting rights, the historical nature of entrenched racism and the healing powers of the Vineyard were all topics when the Congresswoman took the stage at the Tabernacle Friday.
A near-capacity crowd turned out late Sunday afternoon at the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle to cheer an unprecedented event on the Vineyard - the first Freedom Fund rally to support equal rights for Negroes throughout the country. The sponsor of the affair was the Cape Cod branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The site was highly appropriate, for Oak Bluffs and, more specifically, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association which operates the historic Tabernacle, have long epitomized the goals of equality that the NAACP actively promotes.
Hundreds gathered at Veterans Memorial Park in Vineyard Haven Friday to join a march for racial justice and equality, organized in honor of Juneteenth.
Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators flooded downtown Oak Bluffs Sunday in a march against systemic racism and police brutality. The march began at Waban Park, continued along the waterfront to Nancy’s and headed up Circuit avenue, filling the streets with signs, chants and calls for change.
Nearly 100 people attended the racial justice forum Friday, a collaboration between the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School.
Hundreds of Islanders gathered at Five Corners in Vineyard Haven Monday afternoon in a show of solidarity with demonstrations that have swept the nation this past week.
In the 1920s and ’30s, black families could not buy property in Edgartown. And although Oak Bluffs was a gathering place for black professionals back to the 19th century, their children, home from college, were seldom able to work as clerks in local shops.
When the civil rights movement spread across America in the 1960s, the Vineyard was separate in many ways. The black community here was prosperous and thriving, the regional high school was integrated and race relations were cordial.
Members of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha's Vineyard recently assembled for a Sunday worship service that was typical for the congregation. It began with brief community announcements, a hymn and the lighting of a chalice.
But when it was time for the sermon, something different happened. Instead of one minister taking time to talk about the Bible or God or even Martin Luther King Jr., as is the tradition on the second Sunday of the year, the Rev. Bruce Kennedy and two guest speakers each told stories about racial injustice and about "conversations" on race they have had during their lives. When they were done, other members of the congregation also spoke, taking turns voicing their own memories and feelings on the issue.
