African American History

Keeping Memories of the Disenfranchised Alive

Peggy King Jorde, an expert on African burial grounds, has dedicated her life to ensuring memories of the disenfranchised are kept alive.

Weaving a Narrative of Resilience

An exhibit titled And Still We Rise: Race Culture and Visual Conversations, includes more than 40 quilts and is on display at the Mariposa Museum and World Culture Center in Oak Bluffs.

Vineyard Abolitionists Stand Tall

Many contributors to black history weren’t black. Take the abolitionists, for example.

Black History: Jackie Robinson's Friendship With a Vineyard Family

This is the unusual story of the unlikely relationship between two families.

Grace Church Honored as African American Heritage Trail Site

On Sunday Grace Church became the 28th site on the African American Heritage Trail.

Tuesdays in the Newsroom Visits Inkwell Beach and Oak Bluffs Summers

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.

An Island Apart But With a History of Inclusiveness

Martha’s Vineyard is unique for a lot of reasons, sometimes in ways that aren’t readily apparent.

Honoring Our African-American History

The African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard has united communities and augmented the rich fabric of the Island’s history.

Recording Black History on Martha's Vineyard, Filling the Gaps

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.

Revisiting Shearer Summer Theatre

In the 1940s, a small group of women started the Shearer Summer Theatre. Olive Tomlinson's mother Cutie Bowles was one of them.

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