VOICES bySharisse: The conversation continues

When I first invited Islanders to answer one simple question — What does freedom mean to you and your community? — I knew I was curating a special section. I didn’t realize I was beginning a long-overdue conversation. Since publishing the first installment of Voices on Freedom, which has been appearing in our News section, readers have stopped me at coffee shops, community events, and on sidewalks across Martha’s Vineyard to share their own reflections. Some spoke about essays that resonated with them. Others simply answered the question themselves. To me, that has been the greatest success of this project. Not that everyone agreed. But that people listened.

As I reflected on the voices shared in these pages — and those that will continue throughout the summer — I realized something. No two people defined freedom in exactly the same way. Yet every perspective expanded my own understanding of it. Perhaps freedom has never had one definition, one community, or one generation. Perhaps it has always asked us to make room for one another’s stories. That feels especially meaningful as Martha’s Vineyard prepares to enter August.

For generations, August has been more than the height of summer on this Island. It is a season of homecoming — a time when families reunite, traditions are renewed, and history is carried forward. Throughout the month, the African American Film Festival, Black Book Festival, Comedy Fest, HBCU Legacy Week, Vibe Fest, Black Brand Bazaar, family reunions, and countless other community gatherings, both historic and new initiatives, will once again bring people together to celebrate culture, creativity, scholarship, and joy.

At first glance, these may seem like separate events. I see something different. I see freedom. The freedom to gather. The freedom to preserve culture. The freedom to tell our stories. The freedom to honor those who came before us while inspiring those who will come next.

That is what freedom looks like on Black Martha’s Vineyard. Not simply the absence of barriers. But the presence of belonging. As Voices on Freedom continues throughout the summer, my hope is not that we arrive at one definition of freedom. It is that we continue making space for many. Because communities are not strengthened when everyone thinks alike. They are strengthened when people believe one another’s stories are worth hearing.

What does freedom look like?

Two hundred and fifty years later, 

we are still asking. 

Not because we do not know the word. 

But because we have never fully lived its promise.

Because we have watched it change shape 

depending on who is speaking. 

For some, freedom was a declaration signed in ink. 

For others, it was a language nearly erased and stubbornly remembered. 

For some, freedom arrived on a ship. 

For others, it arrived despite one. 

For some, freedom was the right to own land. 

For others, it was the right to remain on it. 

For some, freedom sounded like fireworks. 

For others, it sounded like silence after generations of being told to wait. 

Wait your turn. 

Wait your place.

Wait for rights already promised. 

Wait for justice already deserved. 

Wait. 

Two hundred and fifty years later, 

we are still asking. 

What does freedom look like? 

Does it look like a flag? 

Or does it look like a grandmother teaching her grandchildren who they are? 

Does it look like a ballot? 

Or does it look like a family finally able to stay in the home their ancestors built? 

Does it look like speaking? 

Or does it look like being heard? 

Perhaps freedom is not a destination. 

Perhaps it is a practice. 

A daily choice. 

A willingness to make room 

for someone else’s story 

alongside our own. 

Perhaps freedom looks like dignity. 

The dignity to worship. 

To love. 

To gather. 

To remember. 

To dream. 

To belong. 

Perhaps freedom looks like knowing 

that your existence does not require permission. 

That your humanity is not up for debate. 

That your history cannot be erased. 

That your future is yours to imagine. 

But if freedom is only ours, 

is it freedom at all? 

If one community thrives 

while another struggles to be seen, 

if one story is celebrated 

while another is forgotten, 

if one voice is amplified 

while another is silenced, 

are we free? 

Or are we merely comfortable? 

Two hundred and fifty years after a nation was founded on an idea, 

perhaps the question is no longer 

whether freedom exists. 

Perhaps the question is whether we are brave enough to extend it. 

To protect it. 

To share it. 

To recognize it in forms 

that do not look like our own. 

Freedom has never belonged to one people. 

One race. 

One faith. 

One language.

One generation. 

It asks something of all of us.

And maybe that is the work before us now. 

Not simply to celebrate freedom. 

But to practice it. 

To make room for one another. 

To listen when stories differ from our own. 

To protect the dignity of every person who calls a place home. 

Here on Martha’s Vineyard, 

an Island small enough to know one another, 

yet diverse enough to challenge one another, 

We have an opportunity. 

We can choose to be the community we wish the world would become. A place where history is remembered. 

Where differences are respected. 

Where belonging is not reserved for a select few. 

Where freedom is measured not by what we claim for ourselves, but by what we are willing to extend to others. 

Because if we can do it here —

across generations, 

across cultures, 

across year-round residents and seasonal visitors, 

across Wampanoag, Black, immigrant, and Island communities—

then perhaps we offer something larger than an example. 

Perhaps we offer proof. 

Proof that community is still possible.

Proof that people can choose one another.

Again and again.

Until freedom is no longer just something we celebrate.

But something we practice.