The 20th annual celebration of “Della Brown Taylor Hardman Day” on Saturday drew a crowd and sparked conversation about the younger generation’s role in policy, empathy, and human rights efforts — exemplified in the event organizer’s honoring of a recent Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) graduate who is already a published author, and is originally from Kenya.
The annual event is a recognized holiday in the town of Oak Bluffs, where Hardman lived many of her later years until her eventual passing at age 83 in 2005.
“This is a day that asks us not just to look back, but to look inward,” MVRHS graduate Natalie Wambui, the speaker, said at the event, which was held at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
Hardman was an author, activist, art professor at West Virginia State College, and proud Boston University alumna. Hardman was known on the Island for her community outreach, nonprofit work, and a column in the Vineyard Gazette — where she first signed off with the phrase “savor the moment,” a mantra that remains closely tied to remembrances of her.
“Her work championed the dignity, beauty, and resilience of Black culture,” Andrea Taylor, Della Hardman’s daughter and event organizer, said. A photo of her mother was projected onto two screens behind her — the black-and-white image illuminated by the empowered and youthful edge in Hardman’s expression. Taylor’s son, Wole Coaxum, helped organize the event and spoke to his grandmother’s impact as well.
Taylor addressed the crowd from a podium in an event space outside the museum. Wooden boats lined the walls as her speech echoed among the few dozen people who attended. Taylor emphasized her mother’s belief in the power of art to change the world, and said compassion is a courageous act.
“My mother taught me so many things … We have a responsibility to see each other, and to care,” Taylor said. “What connects us is stronger than what divides us. Let us reflect on how each of us can uphold my mother’s vision.”
Taylor invited Wambui to be the main speaker at the event — her success as an author at such a young age and her affinity for a better world were both qualities that loved ones said Hardman possessed.
“No one changes the world alone,” Wambui said to the crowd as they leaned in closely to listen. “Too often, our community is left fighting for visibility … In the spirit of Della Hardman, I choose to be full.”
Wambui emigrated to the U.S. in 2021 from Kenya when she was 13 years old. She had already published a book of poems at age 8, called “Natalie’s Poems,” that she wrote after she underwent open heart surgery at age 5. She went on to publish two more volumes, called “Extraordinary Kenyans Doing Extraordinary Things: Kenya My Country, My Story,” Vols. I and 2.
Wambui’s mother, Priscillah, was a single mom who was looking for a better life for herself and Wambui, and chose Martha’s Vineyard as their new home and a place for Wambui to further excel at her authorship.
Since moving to the Island, Wambui has created and hosted her own cooking show, called “Natalie’s Kitchen,” on MVTV, was the editor-in-chief of the MVRHS newspaper, “The High School View,” and was a summer intern at The Martha’s Vineyard Times. Her interest in human and civil rights, activism, and global change has blossomed into speaking on some of the largest stages — including at the Geneva Convention in 2020 — where she spoke about gender-based violence, which directly led to the creation of a toll-free number for victims of domestic abuse.
In her speech on Saturday, Wambui spoke to her experience as a Black student at the high school, and that of her peers. There were times, she said, where she witnessed students be bullied for having “hard to pronounce” names. She said she felt “invisible and hypervisible at the same time.”
As a young Black woman, Wambui said her progress is often measured in society by her silence, her appraisal, her ability to go with the grain rather than push against it. She’s expected to “be proud, but not too proud; be passionate, but not angry,” she said.
But her generation, she explained, has seen a light at the end of the proverbial societal and social tunnel. And she said the spectrum of that possibility includes both the processing of global grief and the expectation of global change.
“We are the generation raised in information, but defined by crisis,” Wambui said. “We are not afraid to demand better from the world around us … Yes, we are strong. But we are also tired … We need to stop treating justice as a trend, but as a responsibility.”
Wambui credited civil rights leaders like Hardman for paving the way for peace and equality, and said she was honored to be on a stage commemorating her.
“[Della Hardman] lived her life like a ripple in water,” Wambui said. She said Hardman’s efforts for the Black community on the Island and beyond continue to resonate and affect younger generations, like herself. She then addressed the audience: “What kind of ripple will you be?”
Wambui will attend Bennington College in the fall on a full scholarship. Taylor spoke to the resonance of Wambui’s local impact already, and its continued and lasting effect — or, as Wambui put it, her “ripple in water.”
“When I got here, I realized America was … beautiful, but bruised; loud about freedom, but silent when justice calls,” Wambui said. “[But] this is still a place where change is possible. I still believe that. I have to. Because my story was possible, and Della Hardman’s story was possible.”