Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney came to the Vineyard Saturday for a brief fund-raising trip, with a small group of supporters braving intermittent rain showers to get a glimpse of him.

The plane carrying the former Massachusetts governor arrived at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport at about 10:20 Saturday morning, with state police cars and motorcycles and Secret Service on the ground to greet him. Mr. Romney did not announce his arrival ahead of time through his campaign office.

There were plenty of problems on the table and few easy solutions at hand as an influential panel convened Thursday evening to discuss the issue that has gone unnoticed in this issue-laden presidential election year: unemployment and high poverty rates in the African American community.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, few “would have anticipated that in the year 2012, we would have the largest black middle class in American history,” said forum host Dr. Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrived on the Vineyard Saturday morning for a brief fundraising visit, with a small group of supporters braving the rain to greet him.

The plane carrying Mr. Romney arrived at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport at about 10:20 Saturday morning, with state police cars and motorcycles and Secret Service on the ground to greet him.

Through conversation and rainy walks around West Chop, Art Buchwald, William Styron and Mike Wallace — dubbed The Blues Brothers — battled depression together.

And then the three men, each luminaries in their field — Mr. Buchwald, a humorist, Mr. Styron, a novelist, and Mr. Wallace, a journalist — took their struggle with mental illness public, using their talents and fame to lessen the stigma of depression and other illnesses.