Latest news with #MarthasVineyard
Associated Press
an hour ago
- Business
- Associated Press
The Wealth Weekend: Martha's Vineyard Returns for 2025 With New Documentary Series Hosted by Soledad O'Brien
Scheduled to Take Place August 12-14, the Event is Presented in Partnership with The Saunders Firm and Nex Cubed MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MA / ACCESS Newswire / July 23, 2025 / This August, The Wealth Weekend returns to Martha's Vineyard from August 12-14, convening a powerful network of investors, innovators, policy leaders, and cultural architects to accelerate Black American wealth, ownership, and influence across generations. The high-impact experience is presented by Black Wealth Events and produced by The Coutureman LLC: Advisory, in partnership with The Saunders Firm, P.C. and Nex Cubed. This year's event marks the debut of a compelling new documentary series hosted by award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien, spotlighting the stories, strategies, and groundbreaking contributions of HBCU leaders across finance, entrepreneurship, public policy, and creative industries. Filmed live throughout the weekend, the series will offer an unprecedented look into the real-time conversations and collaborations shaping the future of Black American prosperity. Adding to the power of this year's experience are two visionary co-hosts who bring depth and purpose to the mission. The Saunders Firm, P.C. is an estate planning law firm recognized for its leadership in changing how families approach legacy planning and generational wealth, while Nex Cubed is a venture accelerator that champions innovation from HBCU founders and diverse entrepreneurs. Together, they amplify the intersection of capital, justice, and innovation. Three Days of Power, Purpose, and Legacy: August 12 - Legacy on the Lawn An intimate reception and live fireside chats focused on legacy, trust, and the wealth preservation strategies being implemented by families, entrepreneurs and others. Our aim? To reshape your perspective on legacy and generational wealth. August 13 - Thought Leadership Roundtables Curated think tank sessions designed to elevate Black America's contribution to GDP, with a focus on investment, innovation, and cross-sector collaboration. August 14 - Access to Capital Forum In partnership with Nex Cubed, this forum highlights scalable HBCU-led ventures, connects founders with capital allocators, and explores inclusive investment vehicles. 'This is about power, scale, and impact,' said LaMar Wright, Founder of Black Wealth Events/ Principal of The Coutureman LLC: Advisory. 'The Wealth Weekend: Martha's Vineyard is where capital meets culture - and where Black American wealth becomes a national economic priority.' The Wealth Weekend: Martha's Vineyard is more than an event - it's a blueprint for generational impact. This year's programming also includes: With visionary partners, purposeful programming, and a deep commitment to legacy-building, The Wealth Weekend: Martha's Vineyard is redefining what Black wealth looks like, feels like, and accomplishes in the world. For media inquiries, sponsorship opportunities, or to request press credentials, please contact: Janie Mackenzie [email protected] 856.473.2166 About Black Wealth Events Black Wealth Events (BWE) is a premier platform dedicated to fostering economic competitiveness, investment, and innovation within Black American communities. Through its flagship event series, The Wealth Weekend, BWE connects industry leaders, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to catalyze wealth-building initiatives globally. SOURCE: Black Wealth Events press release
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Vogue
5 days ago
- General
- Vogue
Joseph Lee on the Sprawlng Portrait of Aquinnah Wampanoag Identity at the Center of His New Book, Nothing More of This Land
While Martha's Vineyard is perhaps best known as a vacation spot that draws the well-to-do likes of Seth Meyers and the Obamas to its shores every summer, the island also has a rich and complex Indigenous history. Aquinnah Wampanoag writer Joseph Lee gives voice to that past in his new book, Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity. The book chronicles Lee's own upbringing in Martha's Vineyard, as well considering what it means to be in community with other Indigenous individuals around the world. Here, he discusses the book, community sovereignty, taking inspiration from fellow Aquinnah Wampanoag author and historian Linda Coombs, learning the Wampanoag language as a child, and his favorite thing to do when he's back on Martha's Vineyard. This conversation has been edited and condensed. Vogue: How does it feel to see the book out in the world? Joseph Lee: I mean, the book being out is just really exciting. It's a little bit strange because, you know, you work on something for a long time and mostly by yourself, and then suddenly it's out in the world and people are reading it, and it's exciting and a little scary. Transitioning from just writing, where it's you and your laptop, to being out there talking about it and promoting it is great, but it's definitely a shift. You dig so much into present history, including the origins of your own name. What did your research process look like? It was pretty mixed, because I was using so many different types of sources. A lot of it was just talking to my parents or talking to cousins or going back through tribal meeting records, but [there was also some] looking through the local papers, or we have a tribal newsletter that goes out, and I've looked at a lot of those. I was also doing research online and interviewing people from other places. It was a really diverse research scope. It was just trying to gather as much as possible and [use] as many different sources as possible. Are there books that you kind of feel helped your book exist? I would say almost every book written by an Indigenous person before me. Actually, there's one from my own tribe, by Linda Coombs, and it's called Colonization and the Wampanoag Story. I'm not sure what the technical categorization is, but it's a book that has a lot of history as well as a creative retelling, imagining what life was like before colonization in our tribe. Those kinds of books helped me factually—the information in those books was useful to me—but it also helped me personally think about being a Wampanoag author, being a Native author, and putting something like this out into the world.
Condé Nast Traveler
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Condé Nast Traveler
The Jaws Guide to Martha's Vineyard, 50 Years Later
I've been a movie fan all my life, and Jaws was, for me, the right film at the right moment in my life: It was fantastically suspenseful, and the sea story that makes up the last third of the film was incredibly exciting. But I think that even 12-year-old me recognized that there was more to it than just 'who's the monster going to eat next?' Or 'how are we going to kill the monster?' As an adult, when I lived far from the Vineyard, watching Jaws was an easy way to 'go home' without having to drive a thousand miles or buy a plane ticket. What's your greatest memory on set? I was on the set for one day in late June, when they shot the 'cardboard fin' scene on State Beach. When the assistant director announced through his bullhorn that 'we need 100 brave people to get in the water and play the crowd,' a friend and I volunteered. My overwhelming memory of it was that the water was incredibly cold and—even far from the beach—extremely shallow, only waist deep. We had to pretend that we were splashing and having fun in water over our heads. When we got the signal to 'panic' and swim for the beach, we acted like we were swimming in deep water; we couldn't stand up until the last possible moment. It took 5 or 6 takes—which felt like 10 or 12—until the director—not Spielberg, probably first assistant director Tom Joyner—was satisfied. Over the last 50 years, so much and so little has changed since Jaws was filmed here at Martha's Vineyard. Pamela Schall/Getty Steven Spielberg, at 27 years old, faced a failing mechanical shark and an unpredictable ocean at Martha's Vineyard. Edith Blake/Martha's Vineyard Museum Why do you think Martha's Vineyard was such a great location for the film? Martha's Vineyard is bigger and more diverse (culturally, geographically, economically) than Amity Island, but it has many of the same qualities: a mixture of working-class locals and wealthy summer people, dependence on tourist dollars, arguments about whether or not to do something that might benefit the community in the long run, but might also hurt tourism in the short term. Filming on the Vineyard made Amity feel like a real place and its residents feel like real people. What special locations around the Vineyard can people still visit to commemorate the film? Downtown Edgartown, which 'played' the village of Amity, still looks very much like it did in the movie. You can walk the same route that Chief Brody takes along Davis Lane, South Water Street, and Main Street as he strides from the police department to the hardware store, and stand on the same docks where the fishermen of Amity showed off their tiger shark. Menemsha, where they temporarily built Quint's shack, and filmed the scenes of the Orca loading and departing, still looks very much like it did. The ferry terminal in Vineyard Haven has two slips instead of one now, but Jaws fans disembarking there last weekend were overheard saying excitedly, 'Oh my God! I feel like I'm walking through that scene in the film where people are arriving for the Fourth of July!' State Beach between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, where the two panic scenes—as well as Chrissie's run into the water on her ill-fated nighttime swim—were filmed, still looks just like it did in 1974. There are no striped cabanas and hot dog stands in the dunes; those were built by the production crew for the film. You can stand on the bridge that the shark swam under to eat the man in the red rowboat (and almost eat Mike Brody). Hundreds of people jump off it every day, despite signs warning you not to. It's now known especially to tourists as 'Jaws bridge,' though some old-timers grumble about that not being the real name.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Obamas' private Martha's Vineyard beach could be opened to PUBLIC if wealthy developer gets his way
The Obamas private beach in Martha's Vineyard could soon be opened to the public if a millionaire developer gets his way in a long-running legal battle. Boston real estate mogul Richard Friedman has been fighting his neighbors in the wealthy enclave for years over access to a two-mile stretch of barrier beach, Oyster Pond. He bought a 20-acree property in 1983, believing the purchase gave him ownership of the barrier beach. But his wealthy neighbors disagreed, saying they owned the beach. A lengthy legal saga ensued that was ultimately brought to an end by natural erosion and shifts in the beach's sands. As the court battle went on for decades, Friedman decided that, since the private beaches had by this point moved north to rest between two bodies of water considered 'public' under Massachusetts law - Oyster Pond and Jobs Neck Pond - no private entity should be able to lay claim to them. Now Democratic governor Maura Healy is pushing to open the beach stretch to the public, adding a measure to a $3 billion environmental bond bill that would define a barrier beach which moves - whether by erosion or rising sea levels - on to public land as public property. The bill declares that a beach that moves into the 'former bottom of the great pond shall be and remain in Commonwealth ownership in perpetuity.' Hundreds of homeowners would be affected if the measure passes, including Barack and Michelle Obama, whose 28-acre estate includes a barrier beach that would become open to the public. As the Boston Globe points out, Friedman is a Healy donor and is even scheduled to host a fundraiser for her this weekend. Critics of the bill have accused her of doing a donor's bidding but she insists the planned law will open more of her state's most stunning beaches to regular people who aren't super-rich. The Democrat has denied being swayed by her wealthy donor. Her spokesperson said in a statement: 'As someone who grew up on the Seacoast, Governor Healey has always felt strongly about increasing public access to beaches and great ponds.' The Obamas purchased the sprawling vacation home on Martha's Vineyard for $11.75 million in 2020. The battle between millionaire families has been raging since a century ago, when two wealthy clans - the Nortons and the Flynns - with oceanside mansions carved out the beach overlooking Oyster Pond, claiming land rights to large slices of the shoreline. The Norton land is now owned by three trusts - with Friedman being the principal owner, and the Flynn land is owned by six trusts. Last September, a court ruled against Richard and in favor of the neighbors who say they own the beach. Representatives for the Flynn trusts have been fighting Friedman's efforts for decades, and experts told the Boston Globe that the law would likely invite lawsuits from the affected homeowners of properties with private beaches. Eric Peters, one of the attorneys for the Flynn trusts, said 'There is no public interest promoted' by this this legislation promotes the of a real estate developer.' Friedman's lawyers meanwhile have claimed 28 beaches that are now considered private would be open to the public if the law is changed. Friedman is the developer behind the famed Charles Hotel in Cambridge and the Liberty Hotel in Boston.
Washington Post
15-07-2025
- General
- Washington Post
A personal investigation of Indigenous history on Martha's Vineyard
As a child in the 1990s, journalist Joseph Lee spent his summers on Martha's Vineyard — not in the wealthy celebrity enclave that most associate with the island, but on tribal land in its remote southwestern corner. Lee, whose maternal grandfather is Aquinnah Wampanoag, took for granted that the tribal summer camp he attended, where he learned how to speak his tribe's language, was generations old. After all, his people had been stewarding their land for more than 10,000 years, since the legendary giant Moshup walked the Massachusetts coastline and dragged his big toe, creating a trench that carved off the island of Noepe, now known as Martha's Vineyard. 'I assumed the tribal government had just naturally extended from Moshup's time to the present, when my cousins and I made moccasins and played tag outside the tribal administration building,' Lee writes in his first book, 'Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity.' 'The first time I noticed the plaque commemorating the building's 1993 construction, I was shocked that I was older than the tribal building. I quickly realized that while I knew we had survived, I had no idea what that survival meant or looked like.' Lee not only traces how the Aquinnah Wampanoag survived in the past but paints a nuanced and compelling portrait of the ongoing fights by Indigenous peoples for land, sovereignty and community. Lee spends the first half of the book grappling with revelations from tribal and family history: 'Each new piece of information I learned complicated the simple story I had been told about colonization.' The Wampanoag are unusual in that they escaped the fraudulent treaties, settler violence and forced removals that gobbled up many Indigenous homelands in the colonial period and early years of the United States. But, Lee writes, the tribe couldn't avoid 'the next phase of settler colonialism,' in the late 1800s, when the United States used allotment laws to turn Native lands into privately owned plots that could be easily expropriated. When Massachusetts incorporated Aquinnah in 1870, the Wampanoag gained U.S. citizenship but lost all their collectively owned land, which became property of the state. Wampanoag maintained ownership of the land they lived on, but they had to pay property taxes — difficult to afford with their subsistence lifestyles. In this tension between sovereignty and economic survival, many sold their plots. It would be more than a hundred years before the Aquinnah Wampanoag regained their sovereignty and some of their land, a process rife with tensions and tribulations. The tribe was granted federal recognition in 1987, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs had initially rejected its claim due to the tribe's dispersed community and lack of sufficient self-governance. In other words, as Lee points out, the government was blaming the tribe for suffering the consequences of colonization. Around the same time, the tribe struck a settlement agreement with the town of Aquinnah that granted them nearly 500 acres of land. This was much less land than the tribe had lost in the 1870s, and to get it, the Wampanoags had to sacrifice some self-governance rights, agreeing that they would follow all town and state laws and cede all future land claims. Still, this agreement ensured that the tribe would always have a home in Aquinnah — an important safeguard, as multimillion-dollar property valuations and high property taxes have made it increasingly difficult for Wampanoags to hold onto privately owned plots. In recounting his personally driven inquiry into the tribe's troubles, Lee's approach can be repetitive. He begins each chapter with what he didn't know about his tribe as a younger person, and that naive attitude becomes tiresome, as does Lee's occasionally imprecise language. For instance: 'There was stuff I had as a kid, but then as I grew older, I realized it was up to me to figure out what I wanted and where I could get it from.' That said, once Lee zooms out from his personal experiences, he finds surer footing. He realizes that while the Wampanoag's recent fight for recognition and land back enabled his childhood connections to Native culture, their struggle to 'make the most of the land we have before it's too late' remains. Tensions within tribal government encourage him to look outward in the back half of the book, setting off to report on how other tribes grapple with questions of sovereignty and maintaining community. In his discussions with other Native people and study of the challenges they face — both external and internal — Lee gains new perspective. While visiting with the Shasta of Northern California, who were violently displaced during the Gold Rush and lack federal recognition or reservation lands, Lee 'felt humbled by the sheer willpower it must have taken to keep a community together without some kind of homeland that people could visit,' giving him a greater appreciation for the slice of Aquinnah his people won back. And through the struggle of the Cherokee and Muscogee Freedmen — descendants of Black people these tribes had once enslaved — to gain tribal citizenship and rights, Lee reflects on the fallibility of tribal governments and how internally policing Native identity weakens communities, putting the individual over the collective good. In its focus on recent Native history, 'Nothing More of This Land' offers a fresh perspective on what Indigeneity looks like now, and how it might evolve in the future. As Lee writes, 'After disease, stolen land, persecution, violence, racism, and near extermination, Indigenous peoples across the country are still here. And we aren't going anywhere.' Kristen Martin is a cultural critic based in Philadelphia and the author of 'The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood.' Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity By Joseph Lee One Signal. 235 pp. $28.99
