Oaks Bluffs on the northeast shore of Martha’s Vineyard became known as the only Vineyard town that really welcomed Black tourists. Other towns on the island did not even allow Black people to stay in inns and hotels until the 1960s.
In search of an accessible vacation spot, well-to-do African Americans from New York and Boston came to Oak Bluffs starting in 1907, and by the 1930s, local Black landowners were transforming the town into the country’s best-known and most exclusive African American leisure spots.
References:
- Brown, L. DeNeen. 2009. “Oak Bluffs, Mass., Is Where the Black Elite Is at Home in Summer.” Washington Post.
- Carter, Ash. 2016. “How Oak Bluffs Became a Summer Haven for the African American Elite.” Town & Country.
Photo:
- The Tichnor Brothers Collection. [ca. 1930–1945]. “Country Park, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts,” Digital Commonwealth.