This sign once adorned Shearer Inn in the town of Oak Bluffs, located on Martha Vineyard’s Island, Massachusetts. The inn, a frequent meeting place for African American community organizations and activists, provided a safe haven for those seeking refuge from the daily trials and affronts of racial discrimination.

In the decades before the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans were routinely denied access to beaches, swimming pools, and other sites of leisure and entertainment, not only in the Jim Crow South but also in many parts of the North and West. They responded by creating sites like Oak Bluffs, where blacks could enjoy their own vacation communities.

Charles Shearer, formerly enslaved in Appomattox County, Virginia, settled in nearby Lynchburg following the Civil War. He graduated from Hampton Institute in 1880, where he met and married classmate Henrietta Merchant.  A successful educator, Charles and Henrietta moved their family to Massachusetts to escape the growing pressures of institutionalized segregation.

In 1903, Charles and Henrietta Shearer built a summer cottage in Oak Bluffs.

By 1912, the Shearers expanded their first small cottage into a 12-bedroom home and opened their summer inn. Known for its fine food and warm hospitality, the Shearer Cottage quickly became a gathering place for the African American community, hosting the first meetings of the island’s chapter of the NAACP as well as distinguished guests including Paul Robeson and composer Harry Burleigh.

Well after the era of segregation, Oak Bluffs continues to be a refuge, a site of congregation, of leisure, and of community building. Members of the Shearer family still own and operate the inn. 

The sign pictured above is now in the collection of theSmithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visitors to the museum can view this object in the “Power of Place” exhibition.

Credits and Sources:

2013.209.1 - Sign from Shearer Cottage, 20th century. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Shearer Family.

Christiansen, Shelly. "The Shearer Family, Keepers of the Inn." Martha's Vineyard, July 1, 2012.

Dresser, Tom. Martha's Vineyard: A History. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2015. E-Book. Accessed December 30, 2015. https://books.google.com/books?id=3vvBCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA167&dq=oak+bluff+massachusetts&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv6Kmpg4TKAhWCdR4KHcXZCo04HhDrAQhHMAU#v=onepage&q=oak%20bluff%20massachusetts&f=false

"Shearer Cottage - Family Owned and Operated with Pride since 1903." Accessed December 30, 2015. http://www.shearercottage.com/index.php.