In 1835, Jeremiah Pease invited 30 friends to a place called Edgartown on
Martha's Vineyard for a religious revival. Twenty years later, 12,000 people
were coming every year to spend the summer. Edgartown was renamed Cottage City
in 1880, then Oak Bluffs in 1907. By the 1930s, many wealthy African American
families were buying land in Oak Bluffs, which soon became known as an
exclusive vacation spot for African Americans. Today, filmmaker Spike Lee owns
Oak Bluffs property. And high-profilers like Vernon Jordan and former U.S.
secretary of health and human services, Dr. Louis Sullivan, vacation there.
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