Since the Colonial era, African Americans in Maine have fought for liberation—first by resisting their enslavement and petitioning for their emancipation, then by joining national movements for abolitionism and civil rights. O’Brien will trace the roots of Maine’s racial justice movement from slavery to its formal abolition in 1865. He will cover the role of Black Mainers in electoral politics in the antebellum period and grassroots organizing in the abolitionist and National Colored Convention movements. Learn about influential Black Mainers like activist Reuben Ruby, intellectual Robert Benjamin Lewis, pioneering journalist John Brown Russwurm, Reverend George H. Black, and the radical preacher Reverend William C. Monroe.
