Reverse freedom riders on their way to New England boarded a bus in New Orleans in 1962.

“When two planeloads of asylum seekers were flown to Martha’s Vineyard last month, Peola Denham Jr. recognized an echo of his own experience from six decades ago — one nearly forgotten in the long history of Black Americans’ struggle for civil rights. ‘What really took me back,’ recalled Mr. Denham, 73, ‘is that when the people got to their destinations, they didn’t get what they were promised.’ The migrants on Martha’s Vineyard, who were primarily from Venezuela, found themselves repeating history, pawns in a political fight. The promise — as dozens of them would later recount to lawyers and journalists — was of jobs and resettlement help. Instead, they arrived with no warning to the community, which nevertheless scrambled to find them food and shelter. For Mr. Denham, in the spring of 1962…