Before Martha’s Vineyard Became A Black Summer Staple, The Inkwell Was Our Sanctuary
Long before Martha’s Vineyard became a trending destination, Black-owned businesses helped make Inkwell Beach a place for generations. The post Before Martha’s Vineyard Became A Black Summer Staple, The Inkwell Was Our Sanctuary appeared first on MadameNoire.
Black News 
By 7:30 on summer mornings, while some vacationers are still deciding what to do with their day, swimmers are already in the water of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. Some have been coming for decades. Others are joining for the first time. Together, they exercise, socialize, and welcome another day at Inkwell Beach, a small stretch of Martha’s Vineyard shoreline where Black Americans have gathered for generations.
Known as the Polar Bears, the group began gathering in 1946, when nine Black summer workers started swimming before their shifts. Eight decades later, the ritual continues. The Martha’s Vineyard Times documented the group’s 80-year history in June 2026, tracing how an informal gathering of friends became a tradition built on movement, fellowship, and connection.
The appeal of the Inkwell is, in many ways, wonderfully ordinary. People come to swim, catch up with friends, and spend summer days with family. But behind those familiar pleasures is the history of a community that made room for Black people to enjoy them.
If Netflix’s Forever sent you to Google wondering where Keisha and Justin had gone when the Netflix series traded Los Angeles for Martha’s Vineyard, you probably weren’t alone. The fifth episode of Mara Brock Akil’s coming-of-age romance introduced viewers to the island’s Black summer traditions. Bravo’s Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard, which premiered in 2023, had already followed a group of young Black professionals vacationing there.
My own introduction came through the 1994 film The Inkwell, starring Larenz Tate. Set in 1976, the movie follows a teenager navigating family life, first love, and adolescence during a Vineyard summer. I remember being fascinated by a world where Black families could spend an entire vacation concerning themselves with crushes, family disagreements, and what to do after leaving the beach.
The movie was a fictional introduction to a real cultural inheritance. What I didn’t know then was how many people had worked to make those summers possible. The history of the Inkwell reaches beyond a vacation destination associated with wealthy Black families. It is a story of entrepreneurship, community, and traditions deliberately carried forward.
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The post Before Martha’s Vineyard Became A Black Summer Staple, The Inkwell Was Our Sanctuary appeared first on MadameNoire.
