For photographer Austin Bryant, his newest exhibit “Where They Still Remain,” has the capacity to illustrate deep rooted connections of Wampanoag and Black communities on Martha’s Vineyard ― their shared experiences, unique challenges and interwoven history.
“I am the Black son of a white mother ― I’ve always been interested in different communities intersecting,” said Bryant, who is based in Boston.
The exhibit, which will be shown at Martha’s Vineyard Museum until June 29, explores the work of photographer and writer Bryant through a mix of his photography, archival images, and newspaper articles. There are also four contemporary portraits of people, and a series of archival imagery.
“These two groups of people — these two groups of color — in terms of Indigenous people and Black people have persisted on the Island,” he said. “Throughout this process I’ve been looking from a spiritual sense at all of these stories embedded in the landscape.”
Anna Barber, curator of exhibitions for the Museum, said Bryant’s work explores how Black and Indigenous communities historically became a refuge for one another.
“His story and portraits show viewers what it means to be community and what it means to be a safe space,” said Barber.
Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) citizen NaDaizja Bolling was one of Bryant’s subjects. When she first met Bryant, she said the experience felt respectful and honest.
“Often when we are engaging in photo shoots we can feel like we are on display,” she said. “But Austin was curious. He was open to sharing. He was intent on examining how we belong and interact with our homeland.”
Beulah and Randall: Black and Indigenous intersection
In his exhibit, Bryant, who regularly spent summers on the Vineyard throughout his life, said he also re-tells the story of Beulah Ocooch Vanderhoop, a Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) citizen, who helped Randall Burton, an enslaved person, escape slavery in 1854.
According to the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program, Burton had escaped from Florida by stowing away on a ship. When he was discovered, Burton, fearful of being returned to slavery, stole a boat from the ship while it was docked in Vineyard Haven. He then made his way to Aquinnah. There, Vanderhoop took Burton back to her home and stowed him in her basement until she could find him safe passage to New Bedford. Burton would eventually find his way to freedom in Canada.
In 1850, the federal Fugitive Slave Act required that people running from slavery in the South must be returned to slaveholders. To help a runaway escape was a crime, according to the Freedom Program. The Wampanoag Tribe disobeyed the Fugitive Slave Act and provided a refuge for runaways helping them on their road to freedom.
“Their story just blew me away,” said Bryant, who learned of the duo in the summer of 2021 after photographing aspects of the Aquinnah landscape where Burton is said to have been hiding when he was found by Vanderhoop. The stretch of land, which is operated by the Tribe, was eventually marked with a plaque and recognized as part of the African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard.
Bryant would eventually visit Vanderhoop’s home which. although abandoned, is still standing in an undisclosed location on the Island, he said. Photos of the house aren’t featured in the exhibit, but will be included in a later publication, said Bryant.
Bolling, who is a direct descendent of Vanderhoop, said the story is just one example of a Wampanoag woman taking bold action.
“Beulah sought justice and protection,” she said. “Her actions are a lingering sentiment in contemporary times.”
Bryant uses storytelling as an anchor
The museum, said Barber, has featured exhibits that surround Vanderhoop and Burton’s story in the past, including in “Making Change: stories of Vineyard activism from 1820 to 2020,” which was shown from October 2020 to February 2021; and in “Sailing to Freedom” an exhibit that was organized and curated with the New Bedford Whaling Museum in 2024.
“Oaks Bluff particularly has this identity as a safe haven that always has existed for Black communities,” said Burton.
The Vineyard has also been a place of exclusion, she said.
“There were enslaved people on the island. It’s been sort of reshaped and reimagined to be a sanctuary. And for some it is,” she said. “Still, there’s this deeper thread of providing safety and providing space particularly significant to individuals who were fully disenfranchised and had so much taken from them.”
Narratives of enslaved people exist in the Northern United States, said Bryant, despite a legacy of slavery being connected to the South. In his show, Bryant writes about Martha’s Vineyard as a refuge to the formerly enslaved and their descendants.
“Whether they were freed in their lifetime or born free, Black people developed a reverence for the land not unlike the Wampanoag, who they came to live with and marry,” he wrote in the exhibit. “The trials of the Wampanoag mirror those of other Native Americans when met by white expansionism. It’s a history marked by death and forced assimilation.”
What’s next for Bryant?
There is a larger body of work for “Where They Still Remain,” that will be published in April 2026. For now, though, Bryant is focused on the core stories that make up the development of America.
“There were people who existed here before us. I want to think deeply about that,” he said.
Bryant will also be working on a photographic and writing project that will explore his African American roots in eastern North Carolina, he said. He plans to travel to his family’s community and tell his own story.
“You can only track the Black side of my family so far before it disappears into the fog of slavery,” said Bryant. “But I want to be with my people, photograph them, and explore the history of these small towns that exist out of sight.”
Rachael Devaney writes about community and culture. Reach her at rdevaney@capecodonline.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @RachaelDevaney.
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