The Real Story of Black Martha’s Vineyard

Beyond the beautiful beaches and glitzy galas, Oak Bluffs is a complex community that elite families, working-class locals and social-climbing summerers all claim as their own.

Photos by Christine Sargologos | Story edited by Noah Rosenberg

During a weekend in which we’re immersing ourselves in all things Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one anecdote we love is that in the 1960s, King used to frequent Overton House, a Victorian mansion in Oak Bluffs, the town in which this story is centered. The house was nicknamed the “Summer White House of the Civil Rights Movement” because of the many prominent Black leaders who spent time there, and King is said to have done a lot of his work there. Revisiting this Narratively Classic transported us to an Oak Bluffs of yesteryear where we like to imagine we might have bumped into King at Overton and shared a smile. —Narratively