Martha’s Vineyard Honors Della Hardman Every Year. More West Virginians Should Know Her Name.

The Charleston-born artist and educator left her mark at West Virginia State University and in Oak Bluffs. Her story connects two communities nearly 700 miles apart.

By Traci Phillips

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — Before Della Brown Taylor Hardman became an accomplished artist, educator, writer and cultural leader, she was “grandmother with the cookies.”

“To me, she was grandmother with the cookies,” Wole Coaxum told the crowd gathered at Ocean Park during the 2026 Della Hardman Day celebration. “But she was an educator.”

Coaxum knew Hardman as his grandmother. The people gathered in Oak Bluffs knew her as the woman who taught, created art, wrote about their community and made people feel seen.I knew almost none of this before coming to Martha’s Vineyard.

I’m a reporter from Charleston, West Virginia—the same city where Hardman was born in 1922. Yet I had traveled nearly 700 miles to learn just how much she had accomplished.

Her story began in West Virginia

Hardman attended Garnet High School, Charleston’s segregated school for Black students, before earning her undergraduate degree from West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University.

She continued her education at Boston University and earned her doctorate from Kent State University at age 72. She studied around the world, exhibited her artwork nationally and internationally, and taught art at West Virginia State for 30 years.

Hardman also hosted The Black Experience, a Charleston radio program focused on Black life and culture.

Her name remains present at West Virginia State. The Della Brown Taylor Art Gallery, located inside the university’s Davis Fine Arts Building, was named in her honor.

That matters. West Virginia did not completely forget Della Hardman.

Still, I wondered how many people have walked past the gallery without knowing who she was. I had attended events in that building myself without understanding the full story behind the name.

Hardman moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1986 after retiring from West Virginia State. She became a columnist for the Vineyard Gazette and remained active in the island’s arts, cultural and civic organizations.

In 1994, the Martha’s Vineyard NAACP presented her with its first Humanitarian Award.

Her community continued honoring her after her death in 2005. Each summer, family members, former students and residents gather in Oak Bluffs for Della Hardman Day.

The theme of the 2026 celebration was “Our Stories, Our Legacy.” Writer and television producer Mara Brock Akil, creator of Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane and Netflix’s Forever, was one of the featured speakers.

Later that evening, Akil read from her debut novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne. West Virginia came up during the reading in a way I did not expect.

When she opened the floor for questions, I introduced myself as a reporter with Black By God: The West Virginian, the state’s only Black-owned news publication.

I told her about some of the West Virginia stories we have covered, including Booker T. Washington, Randy Moss, actor Lou Myers and now Della Hardman.

“What can I do as a journalist to help change the narrative about our state?” I asked.

“Whether it be West Virginia or anywhere,” Akil answered, “it is so important for us to be in the practice of telling our story.”

Her answer was simple, but it spoke directly to the work Black By God has been doing. Watch my exchange with Mara Brock Akil.⁠

The connections kept coming

A few weeks before Della Hardman Day, I helped lead Black By God’s Youth Voices Rising journalism workshops at West Virginia State.

The workshops were part of the Norman Jordan African American Arts and Heritage Academy. Young people from West Virginia and several other states interviewed community members and created videos about identity, community and belonging.

WCHS-TV visited the campus⁠ while the students learned how to report and produce their own stories.I did not make the Della Hardman connection during the workshops.

It hit me later: We had taught young people how to tell stories on the same campus where Hardman studied and spent three decades teaching. Some of those students may have passed the gallery bearing her name without knowing where her life took her. I had done the same thing.

Another unexpected connection surfaced while I was filming Black By God’s What You Know About West Virginia? series on Martha’s Vineyard.

I asked former BET 106 & Park host AJ Calloway what he knew about the state. Instead of drawing a blank, he told me his father was from Dunbar—my hometown—and had attended West Virginia State.

That was not the answer I expected. Watch AJ Calloway share his family’s West Virginia connection.⁠

Calloway’s family connection, Akil’s answer and the students at West Virginia State all became part of my reporting journey. But Della Hardman remained at the center.

Her life connected Charleston, West Virginia State and Martha’s Vineyard long before I arrived in Oak Bluffs. She spent 30 years teaching in West Virginia, then built another legacy hundreds of miles away.

Martha’s Vineyard made her life part of an annual tradition. West Virginia State put her name on an art gallery. Maybe it’s time for West Virginians to remember her, too.