The African American Heritage
Trail of Martha’s Vineyard began as part of a promise to a
little boy, and in 1998 the Shearer Cottage was dedicated as the
first site on the Trail. The ambition was to reach a total of
eight sites. That there were many stories was obvious, but the
depth and range of the experiences that make up the tapestry of
the African American experience on Martha’s Vineyard was
amazing. From fugitive preachers to nationally known
politicians, all the struggles and triumphs of people of color
were part of the story of this Island. The Heritage Trail now
has 25 sites with many more planned. The Trail stretches from
one end of the Island to the other, honoring the events of
national significance that played out on a smaller, but vitally
important, stage.
In a yellow house next to Tony’s
Market a story unfolded that embodies the range of the African
American experience as it was lived by a woman born in Virginia
in 1893. Her birth name was Jane Chambers but she later became
more well-known as Emma Chambers Maitland. Her parents, Wyatt
and Cora Chambers, were tobacco farmers and life was hard. She
often spoke of working all season for a new set of clothes and
two pairs of shoes, one for working in the fields and one for
going to church. Despite the harshness of her life, Emma nursed
an ambition to become a teacher and though her father strongly
objected, she sought out a convent where she could find help to
study. Without telling her family, she took and passed the
teachers test.
Emma was ambitious and determined
and within a few years left Virginia and headed to Washington,
D.C., where she met her future husband Clarence Maitland who was
completing his studies at Howard University. He graduated with
his medical degree. Clarence and Emma married and she became
pregnant with a baby girl. Within a year of their marriage
Clarence Maitland died of tuberculosis leaving his young wife
with a baby in her arms and no clear plan for the future.
Reflecting on her life, Emmas observed, “I was a fiancee, a
wife, a mother and a widow all in one year.”
Alone in the world with a child
to care for, Emma decided to seek her fortune as a dancer and an
actress. With the same force of character that had enabled her
to pass the teachers certificate, she left her child with her
parents and headed off to Paris where she danced in the cabaret
and even at the famous Moulin Rouge. She traveled throughout
Europe as a dancer and family lore has it that at one of her
dancing engagements at the home of an aristocrat in Ireland,
Emma had to strenuously rebuff the man’s advances. It must have
been difficult for a dancer in the early 1900s not to be viewed
as a woman who would welcome such advances. Perhaps as a result
of this, Emma began to train with heavyweight boxing champion,
Jack Taylor, and returned to the U.S. a certified boxer. -
Back in the United States and very
much immersed in the Harlem Renaissance era of theatre and
dance, Emma danced in the famous musical Shuffle Along, the
first Broadway musical written, produced and performed by
African Americans. In 1929 she appeared in the theatre
production Harlem at the Apollo Theatre. But it was as a boxer
that Emma eventually became most famous.
In 1927 she had appeared in a boxing
skit in Paris where she and fellow African American boxer
Aurelia Wheeldin boxed for three rounds during their stage
presentation. Both women had filed for licenses to box the
French female boxing champion,
Jeanne Le Mar. In the spring 2013 edition of The Journal of
Sport there was a photograph of Emma Maitland and Aurelia
Wheeldin boxing in Paris in their Tea for Two revue.
Emma was extremely successful
earning over $500 a fight and being recognized as the female
lightweight boxing champion of the world. The photographs taken
of her during her boxing career show that dancing talents and
exotic costumes were part of her performances.
It seems that Emma Maitland felt very strongly about women’s
rights and she was very willing to support any woman who was not
being treated fairly. A family story has it that she became a
bodyguard for a widow who had inherited her late husband’s
stocks, but as women were not allowed to hold the floor at the
stock exchange this woman needed help. She hired Emma as her
bodyguard to protect her from anyone seeking to eject her when
she entered the building.
After retiring from boxing, Emma taught dance and gymnastics in
New York with a great emphasis on the importance of “clean
living.” She hated smoking and in an era when it was a very
pervasive habit she absolutely forbade anyone to smoke in or
around the gym. She bought a house on Martha’s Vineyard to spend
summers and eventually retired here.
Even after working several careers as a tobacco farmer, a
schoolteacher, a traveling dancer and actress, a professional
boxer, a bodyguard and a gymnastics teacher, Emma Maitland was
not done. In her later years she worked as a nurse. She died on
Martha’s Vineyard in 1975 at the age of 82 and in the years that
have passed her remarkable life has become largely forgotten.
Thanks to the generosity of her great nephew, Frank Chambers,
the Heritage Trail has become aware of Emma’s story. She
embodies all that the organization values. She is an incredible
role model for young women who wonder about their own
possibilities and for all people everywhere. Her life is the
story of a woman who never accepted the limitations placed upon
her. She was a fighter in every sense of the word, from her
earliest days working in the tobacco fields through her years of
international travel and theatrical revue and her success as
world boxing champion. She embraced life with both hands, seeing
potential in every situation.
In an age when for a young woman of color the possibilities were
very limited, she broke all the rules and her courage and
talents deserve to be remembered. Her life will now be
celebrated by the African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s
Vineyard and her story will be part of the narrative.
Original Story:
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