A number of high-profile politicians converged on Oak Bluffs on Friday for a low-key but spirited book signing and talk by the South Carolina congressman, who is a longtime Vineyard visitor. The book signing was among many events this summer with connections to African American history and culture.

On May 31, 2012, David McCullough Jr. was “just a regular high school English teacher.” But by June of that year, he was regular no more.

Peter Beinart, Alan Dershowitz and Robert Mnookin gathered at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center to engage in a panel discussion on Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 1973, when Pulitzer Prize-winning UPI journalist Lucinda Franks was 26, she was sent to interview U.S. attorney Robert Morgenthau, who had just been fired by Richard Nixon.

A line of people eager to greet Mrs. Clinton stretched all the way to the Steamship Authority wharf just before the rainy-day event Wednesday at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven. The former Secretary of State and longtime Island visitor was noncommittal about a run for the presidency.

After seeing the northern states for the first time in 1951 during a summer with his aunt and uncle in Buffalo, N.Y., Cong. John Lewis began questioning the quality of life that many around him took for granted.