African Americans have been part of Maine’s history since at least the colonial era. Their experiences connect the state’s religious institutions, schools, military service, politics, civil rights, hospitality, and historic preservation.
Early presence and education
Records indicate that Black people were in Maine by at least 1736, when a church in York purchased an enslaved person for its minister. This history forms part of the broader record of slavery in northern New England.
John Brown Russwurm became Bowdoin College’s first Black graduate in 1826 and was among the earliest Black graduates of an American college. He later became a co-founder and co-editor of Freedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned and operated newspaper in the United States.
James Augustine Healy (1830–1900), who became bishop of Portland in 1875, is recognized as the first African American Catholic bishop in the United States and the first African American ordained as a Catholic priest.
Maine connections beyond the state
Civil War general Oliver Otis Howard, born in Leeds, played a central role in establishing Howard University in Washington after the war.
Exclusion, resistance, and public life
The forced removal of the mixed-race community on Malaga Island, in the New Meadows River near Phippsburg, remains one of the most troubling episodes in Maine history. The case illustrates how racism, poverty, and public policy could combine to displace an established community.
The Ku Klux Klan became a political force in Maine during the 1920s. Its campaigns targeted African Americans as well as Catholics, Jewish people, immigrants, and other communities.
In 1972, Gerald Talbot of Portland became the first African American elected to the Maine Legislature. He served through 1978 and also served on the State Board of Education.
The Abyssinian Meeting House
The Abyssinian Meeting House in Portland is central to the history of Maine’s African American community. The 1994 documentary Anchor of the Soul presents Black history in northern New England through the meeting house’s story. Its architectural and community significance is also documented through the Portland Historic Register.
Travel, hospitality, and the Green Book era
Although Maine hotels and motels were not formally segregated by state law, Black travelers often encountered refusals and informal discrimination. Public reporting of a 1962 incident in Ogunquit, where a Black actress was denied accommodations at several hotels, revealed how openly prejudice could shape travel.
Black-owned and Black-friendly tourist homes offered an essential alternative. In Old Orchard Beach, the Cummings family opened their remodeled farmhouse to African American travelers in 1923 and continued the enterprise for decades. More context appears in the Old Orchard Beach entry.
The 1946 edition of The Negro Motorist Green Book listed tourist homes in Augusta, Gardiner, and Bangor, along with a hotel and two tourist homes in Portland. Later editions identified destinations in Augusta, Dixfield, Old Orchard Beach, Portland, and Robbinston.
Rock Rest in Kittery
Rock Rest, operated by the Sinclair family in Kittery during the postwar period, welcomed Black visitors when many other accommodations did not. It did not list in the Green Book; instead, guests learned about it through postcards, friends, and former visitors.
The Sinclairs’ guests included civil servants, domestic workers, and professionals. Their experiences place this Maine property within the national story of Black mobility, economic opportunity, discrimination, and leisure after World War II. The Kittery article provides related local context.
Military service
James Sheppard Jr., associated with Westbrook and South Portland, served as an aircraft crew chief with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. In 2007 he was among the veterans collectively recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal for their service. He died in 2018 at age 93.
Population records
Historical census figures show significant growth in Maine’s Black population between 2000 and 2010. Readers should treat those figures as dated snapshots and consult current census tables when conducting demographic research. The archive’s county population entry provides an additional route into this subject.