Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
LEWISTON – A panel discussion, “Overlooked Stories and Histories: African Americans in Maine,” is the next topic in the Great Falls Forum series, noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, at Lewiston Public Library, 200 Lisbon St., as well as on Zoom and the library Facebook page.
The discussion is free and open to the public, and in-person participants may bring their own lunch.
The panel will feature Rachel Ferrante, executive director, Museum L-A, and Bob Greene, a retired journalist and historian and trustee of Maine Historical Society. It will be moderated by Leslie Hill, a retired professor of politics at Bates College.
Maine is consistently described as the whitest state in the country, despite its increasingly diverse population. Yet, multiple waves of migrants have added to the long-standing Indigenous populations who lived, worked, celebrated, and worshipped here for thousands of years. Black people and other people of color have been invisible to many as the narrative of Maine as a racially unvarying place persists. Now, the narrative is changing. The story of the state’s diversity is enlarging as more recent migrants, from across the country and abroad, establish new lives here. What stories have been overlooked in accounts of the state’s historical diversity? How can learning those stories help us fashion the present and future?
The panel will share stories to advance our knowledge of African Americans in Maine. Along with building a more honest and inclusive narrative of the community’s racial-ethnic heritage, panelists offer creative ways to preserve and celebrate told and untold stories of work, community-building, and the region’s multifaceted heritage.
For information, call 207-513-3135 or email LPLReference@lewistonmaine.gov.
