Belonging Beyond Brown’s core framework includes understanding the impact of belonging across spaces. As such, as a part of its screening at the Strand Theater in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, the BBB crew also filmed conversations with Oak Bluffs home and business owners. These conversations centered on the need for communal spaces for entertainment and joy, the realities of getting to and enjoying the island, and the necessity of being part of its investment rather than its extraction.

We celebrate the rich tapestry of Oak Bluffs with our features, including stewards of the Strand Theater, Steve Capers and Dorothy Capers, and the talented Dr. Camille Banks-Lee and Director Malcolm Lee, who provide their own perspectives on how we can continue to celebrate spaces like Oak Bluffs while demystifying ways of access and enjoyment on the island.

The results of the conversations suggest that even in spaces of community inclusion and joy, carved out of practices of broader societal exclusion, one’s class – or access points to the cultural practices therein – can complicate how and whether one experiences belonging.

In this sense, belonging is one’s ability to access and sustain presence within a space, not just the existence of some people within the space itself. More broadly, a historically Black beach town, an HBCU campus, a cultural festival, or an arts institution may symbolize liberation, but if participation requires resources that are unevenly distributed, then belonging becomes stratified. Some experience ease and continuity, others experience aspiration, interruption, or distance.

Liberatory spaces require liberatory access. Without it, even the most culturally rich and affirming environments risk reproducing the very exclusions they were created to resist.

Therefore, it is important that cultural institutions such as HBCUs, nonprofits, arts and entertainment, and general business communities support access to these spaces as sites of possibility, resulting in opportunities that fortify the person and the island itself.

The conversations deepen a lens of belonging that the crew will continue to explore.