Oak Bluffs: The Legacy of Black Martha’s Vineyard and Black Artists

For generations, Martha’s Vineyard — near Cape Cod off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts — has been a sanctuary for Black, middle- to upper-income, educated professionals. It is a quiet storm of salt air, family reunions and porchfront conversations where the present catches its breath and the past lingers just long enough to feel familiar. Among the towns that make up this storied island, Oak Bluffs stands apart — a cultural anchor where Black history isn’t just remembered, but lived.

Long known as a haven for Black elites, artists, and intellectuals, Oak Bluffs represents more than just summer getaways. Oak Bluffs became a rare exception in an era when racial covenants and systemic barriers prevented most Black Americans from owning property elsewhere in the country. Unlike on the mainland—where Black homeownership was often blocked by government and developer-backed restrictions—on Martha’s Vineyard, such practices were never institutionalized. That freedom — the ability to build, rest, and return — planted seeds for what would become a generational retreat for Black excellence, creativity, and joy.

Dorothy West

The arts have always had a seat at the Vineyard table. Harlem Renaissance author Dorothy West made the island her home for most of her adult life, weaving the richness of Black life into novels like “The Living Is Easy” and “The Wedding” — the latter set on the island and adapted into a miniseries produced by Oprah Winfrey. 

West also wrote a beloved Oak Bluffs column for the Vineyard Gazette for years, documenting everything from neighborhood gossip to deep reflections on race, class, and kinship.

Loïs Mailou Jones

Painter Loïs Mailou Jones, an icon in her own right, summered in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs from childhood through adulthood. A key figure in both the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, her vibrant depictions of Vineyard scenes such as Vineyard Haven Harbor and Menemsha reflect a lifelong creative relationship with the island. Jones once said the Vineyard helped her see “beauty in everyday Black life”—a perspective that fueled her decades-long career.

Della Brown Taylor Hardman

Then there’s Della Brown Taylor Hardman, the multimedia artist, educator and humanitarian whose Vineyard roots inspired her rich textile and ceramic works. Hardman, who taught for decades and held a doctorate in education, was a frequent speaker and beloved figure in the Oak Bluffs arts scene. The island honors her legacy annually with Della Hardman Day, a celebration of Black culture and artistic excellence.

Black Filmmakers and Martha’s Vineyard

The Vineyard has been captured in film. From the coming‑of‑age warmth of “The Inkwell” (1994) to the class-crashing romance of “Jumping the Broom” (2011), Martha’s Vineyard has long served as more than a picturesque backdrop for Black storytellers — it is a cultural sanctuary where lineage, leisure, and liberation converge. 

Stanley Nelson, Emmy-winning director and MacArthur fellow, chronicled decades of memories in his 2004 PBS documentary “A Place of Our Own.” In a deeply personal film, he explored summer life from childhood forward and featured interviews of high-profile inhabitants, including historian Henry Louis Gates and the late civil rights lawyer Lani Guinier.

Netflix’s 2025 series “Forever,” created by Mara Brock Akil, loosely adapted from the Judy Blume novel of the same name, “The Vineyard,” was filmed in Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven. Akil, a seasonal resident of West Tisbury for over a decade, lets the island’s elegance and nostalgia breathe through each frame, grounding contemporary themes of freedom, history, belonging, and teenage innocence in a landscape she calls “one of the safest places I know to be Black in America.”

Our stories — whether written in books, painted on canvas, or caught on camera — have always belonged in full view.

It’s no accident that when Black creatives imagine spaces of care, growth, and complexity, they so often find themselves in Oak Bluffs. It’s not just the beaches or the gingerbread cottages. It’s the history — the knowing that we’ve always been here, always been worthy of beauty, respite, and legacy. That knowledge becomes both backdrop and central character in our art.

In a world that constantly demands performance or resilience, Martha’s Vineyard — and Oak Bluffs in particular — offers Black artists a rare alternative: rest and reflection as muse. It’s a place where the past, present, and future walk hand in hand. Where a painter, a poet, and a grandmother on her front porch all draw from the same well. Where art doesn’t just imitate life — it testifies to it.

To talk about Oak Bluffs is to talk about memory, inheritance, and what it means to make space for yourself and your people. And for Black artists, it remains both a refuge and a reminder that our stories — whether written in books, painted on canvas, or caught on camera — have always belonged in full view. Whether you come to trace the footsteps of artists past, find your own moment of stillness, or simply walk the same shores that inspired generations of Black brilliance — Oak Bluffs welcomes you. Visit for yourself. Breathe it in. And add your story to the legacy.

Joshua Levi Perrin is a writer and content curator for Unerased | Black Women Speak.