Oak Bluffs and a glimpse into a History of Accomplishments

My brief visit to Martha’s Vineyard led me to the MV Museum in Vineyard Haven, where a display of sepia photographs and vintage bathing suits piqued my curiosity about how the island town of Oak Bluffs had evolved into a safe haven for Black families. I learned how early Black visitors, who were often domestic workers for wealthy white summer vacationers, and later Pullman porters and educators, began buying property, became business owners, and laid the foundation for generations of Black homeownership and entrepreneurship. 

Throughout the mid-20^th century, Oak Bluffs played host to civil rights leaders, with the iconic Shearer Cottage becoming the first of many inns on the island to welcome African American guests. Soon, prominent Black writers, poets, and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance began vacationing there. The island records the quiet march of progress across generations, telling a story of grit, aspiration, and success.

While looking for books that could broaden my knowledge of Oak Bluffs, I happened to pick up Dorothy West’s novel, The Wedding.

West is a somewhat overlooked figure in the Harlem Renaissance.  She was overlooked by publishers who had a rather narrow idea of what it meant to be Black and did not think books about wealthy or privileged Blacks would be popular.

The Wedding, published 31 years ago, is a surprisingly contemporary read. It is a complex tale of race and colorism that goes beyond the obvious themes of suffering and the indignity the generations endured and how they clawed their way into the position of ‘elite.’

Once you reach elite status, the special rules of blue-vein societies take over. West’s observations on this are incisive and cutting, as she reveals an intricate braiding of race, class, and wealth. The Wedding shows how color can be overlooked when pitted against professional success.

The book's audacity lies in presenting deeply flawed characters, with their biases and fickleness underscoring the contradictions of a unique situation—a prosperous, young, ‘fair’ Black woman’s wedding to a White, struggling jazz pianist. It opens difficult discussions, bringing to light the complicated biases within interracial families. In these already complex circumstances, a nouveau riche Black man enters with designs to snatch the bride-to-be to gain entry into the proud, insular island community. The young woman is confused as she talks to her father, a Black doctor who married for status, and her White great-grandmother, the matriarch and an old-fashioned Southern belle, who offer two starkly different perspectives on marriage. 

The book is especially refreshing to read today, as we have backtracked as a society on prioritizing our ethnicity over our individuality. Today, our ‘identity’ has become our politics, ascertaining our values and belief system. In this book, West takes a deep look at race and colorism from multiple perspectives and, in doing so, calls everyone out, revealing the hypocrisy of how conveniently one can change their stance when it comes to marriages, treating it more like a business deal or a status symbol than the confluence of two kindred souls. She is conscious about not lumping all Black or all White together into a stereotype but instead treats them as ‘individuals’ with their innate qualities.

“Color is a false distinction; love was not.”

West penned the novel in her eighties, so what we see is a character-driven story written with wisdom that comes with a life lived to the fullest. The story’s quiet wisdom is so contemporary that the reader might forget she is reading a novel published way back in 1995.

My visit to Martha’s Vineyard revealed a rich history I had previously overlooked, while West’s The Wedding opened my eyes to a world rarely seen—one where Black families are not only highly educated and professionally successful but also summer in luxurious cottages on an island that serves as their safe haven. This compelling portrayal underscores the resilience and achievement of a community that often goes unnoticed.