Martha’s Vineyard is unique for a lot of reasons, sometimes in ways that aren’t readily apparent.
African American History
September 7, 2017
Elaine Cawley-Weintraub
The African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard has united communities and augmented the rich fabric of the Island’s history.
August 24, 2017
Louisa Hufstader
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.
August 1, 2017
Alex Elvin
In the 1940s, a small group of women started the Shearer Summer Theatre. Olive Tomlinson's mother Cutie Bowles was one of them.
January 13, 2017
Louisa Hufstader
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.
September 22, 2016
Steve Myrick
The Smithsonian Institution's new National Museum of African American Culture and History documents the story of the African American community in Oak Bluffs.
August 22, 2016
Alex Elvin
The Republican party, Donald Trump and the media all came under fire in this year’s Hutchins Forum, in the midst of what will surely be remembered as one of the most consequential presidential elections in modern time.
August 2, 2016
Bettye Foster Baker
For the past 60 years, women of the Cottagers Inc. have answered the question, what does it mean to serve community?
August 2, 2016
Louisa McCullough
Richard Taylor's new book, Martha’s Vineyard: Race, Property, and the Power of Place, traces the story of the African American community on the Vineyard.
July 21, 2016
From the Cottagers’ Corner column in the July 1969 editions of the Vineyard Gazette by Dorothy West.
July 14, 2016
Steve Myrick
Union Chapel was packed for Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr.'s film about African Americans over the past five decades. His talk later was part college lecture, part humorous observation, part nostalgic Vineyard experience.
July 11, 2016
Alex Elvin
The sound of crashing waves mixed with prayer and music Monday morning as upwards of 200 people gathered at Inkwell Beach in the wake of police shootings and racial violence around the country.
