President Obama’s holiday in Martha’s Vineyard has confirmed the racially mixed resort as the capital of upwardly mobile black America.

African-American celebrities, executives and academics who have long vacationed on the island are celebrating the arrival of America’s first black President.

Black Entertainment Television chose the relatively inaccessible island — rather than New York — last week to launch its new Centric TV channel, aimed at middle-class blacks.

The film directors Spike Lee and Reggie Hudlin are already on the island, along with Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Carole Simpson, the African-American broadcasters Secret Service agents were seen this weekend checking out the Edgartown summer home of the comedian David Letterman, where the TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey is expected to stay during the Obamas’ holiday.

“Right now, on a scale of 1 to 10, the mood is over 10. We are looking forward to this historic visit,” said Deon Thomas, the Jamaican-born owner of Deon’s restaurant in Oak Bluffs. “We love him very much.” Mr Obama began his week-long vacation on Sunday with dinner with his aide, Valerie Jarrett, who has a house in the island town of Oak Bluffs.

Freed slaves began taking refuge in Oak Bluffs in the late-18th century and the town became a haven for middle-class blacks during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s when many bought cottages in the seaside town. The beach is known as the Inkwell.

The town is now home to a prosperous black community that includes Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor and Obama friend who clashed with a white policeman who checked his Boston-area home, and the Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, another Obama friend.

Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard professor, who is white, said that Oak Bluffs was a model for racial tolerance. “I was at a party to watch the fireworks. Half were white. Half were black. It’s the way things should be,” he said.

Controversy erupted before the presidential holiday when the black writer Touré suggested in New York Magazine that the Vineyard was not as racially integrated as it claimed to be.

“As liberal as it is the Vineyard is about as racially integrated as a college dining hall — blacks and whites get along fine but they generally don’t socialise,” he wrote.

That prompted local resident Abigail McGrath to ask African-American Vineyarders to sign an open letter of complaint.

The Obamas began their holiday with dinner at their rented 28-acre Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark with Ms Jarrett and the Whitakers, friends from Chicago. After playing tennis with his wife, Michelle, Mr Obama hit the golf course with James Clyburn, a leading black Congressman from South Carolina.

They were joined by Robert Wolf, the president of UBS Investment Bank, and Marvin Nicholson, the White House trip director.

The White House said that Mr Obama decided his plans each day after waking up, eating breakfast and working out. “He is due a little time to recharge his batteries with his family,” Bill Burton, his spokesman, said.

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