The ‘Black Chef Series’ Is Turning Juneteenth Jubilee Into A Movement On Martha’s Vineyard

This is not just a dinner ...

As the nation prepares to celebrate Juneteenth, a momentous upscale culinary event on Martha’s Vineyard is reminding residents and visitors that honoring this historic moment means investing in cultural equity.

There is something profoundly radical about a Black chef standing at the head of a table and saying: “This food has a story, and tonight you will hear it.” On June 19th and 20th, at MV Salads in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, that act of radical grace will take center stage. The Black Chef Series, founded by Chef Lance Knowling, is bringing together an intimate gathering of 20 guests per evening for A Juneteenth Chef’s Table Experience — a seven-course dinner rooted in Black culinary heritage, reimagined through ingredients sourced from Martha’s Vineyard, and paired with wines and mocktails curated by Stephanie Browne of Sipping Sense. This is not just a dinner. And it is important that we say that plainly.

The Politics of the Black Table

For generations, the Black kitchen has been the most undervalued room in American culture. Black recipes fed presidents who would not have let us sit at their tables. Black culinary traditions traveled across the Atlantic in the memories of enslaved people who were stripped of everything else, and yet — they remembered. They grew, seasoned, smoked, and simmered their way through survival. And still, for too long, that legacy has been appropriated, anonymized, or simply ignored. What Chef Lance Knowling and The Black Chef Series are doing in Oak Bluffs is reclamation. It is the deliberate, intentional act of placing Black culinary heritage at the center, not as a footnote, not as inspiration quietly borrowed, but as the main course, in every sense of the word.

Martha’s Vineyard Is Not an Accident

The choice of location speaks volumes. Martha’s Vineyard, and Oak Bluffs in particular, has been a sanctuary for Black excellence for well over a century. The Oak Bluffs community has long served as a gathering place for Black intellectuals, artists, professionals, and families — a place where Blackness was never something to be diminished or explained. To host this experience here is to situate it within a living tradition of Black joy and ownership. When the ingredients come from the land, from the waters and the soil, the food carries that history, too. Every plate becomes a kind of homecoming.

Storytelling as Sustenance

What sets this experience apart is the presence of Sharisse Scott-Rawlins, storyteller and immersive artist, alongside award-winning Chef Herb Wilson. The deliberate pairing of culinary artistry with narrative art is not incidental — it is the whole point. African Americans have always known that food and story cannot be separated in Black culture. The way ingredients, recipes, and techniques are passed down is itself a story. The spices carried from West Africa, the techniques passed through Jim Crow and sharecropping and the Great Migration, these are not embellishments to the meal. They are the meal. By bringing a storyteller to the table, The Black Chef Series honors what elders have always known: that feeding someone is an act of love, and love always has something to say.

A Moment Worth Making

Twenty seats. Two evenings. $250 per person. The investment is worth it: a meal conceived with intention, ingredients sourced with care, wine pairings designed by a Black woman entrepreneur, and a room where every detail has been constructed to honor who we are and where we come from. Diners are not simply paying for dinner. They will be supporting a vision of Black culinary excellence that refuses to be small. In a world that consistently undervalues Black art, Black culture, and Black business, presence at this table is itself a statement.

Where & When

MV Salads, 55 Circuit Ave, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, on June 19 & 20, at 6:30 PM EST.