Throughout the summer, your social media feed has likely given you a narrow glimpse of Martha’s Vineyard: endless all-white-attire parties, a who’s who of Black political figures and influencers, and brands unafraid to be seen with us in public despite the great DEI purge.
There was former President Barack Obama waving to onlookers during a round of golf at Farm Neck Golf Club, and Michelle Obama hitting the dance floor at Nomans. Chef JJ Johnson ran his Nightcap pop-up at the Edgartown Diner. A Great Day at Inkwell Sunrise Portrait. The Rev. Howard-John Wesley preached at the historic Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, and Bishop Jamal Bryant brought a dose of fiery liberation theology to The Tabernacle. Artists and big thinkers cycled through the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival and the Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival. The viral moments abound — but they still don’t capture the fullness of what the Vineyard offers America in these turbulent times.
“I see Martha’s Vineyard as a portal,” said Tiffany Lauren Jones, cultural futurist and CEO of Satori Agency, at the ColorHaus Presents: Culture Is the Inheritance event. “Every August, I feel spiritually revived, and I feel safe enough to share stories with my community here that then inspire ideas and collaborations, and to really reinvent the future of what we see coming next.”
The “Black and Bougie” caricature flattens the Vineyard into a punchline — champagne, linen, celebrity sightings — when the island has functioned as a site of Black political organizing and infrastructure-building since Reconstruction. Beyond the star-studded fundraisers, what’s happening on the Vineyard isn’t just fodder for viral moments or fuel for the 2026 election cycle — it’s laying a foundation for the decades after, with glimmers of radical imagination.
“What gives me hope is the fear that I’m sensing in our community,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. “Fear either paralyzes or propels.”
The myth isn’t wrong that Black excellence congregates on the Vineyard — it’s wrong about what that congregation has historically produced, and continues to produce, to power us well into the future.
Source: What Happens on the Vineyard Doesn’t Stay on the Vineyard
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