by Andy O’Brien Photo: Canva In the early 1830s, there were only about one or two hundred Black voters in Portland, but because of their concentration in a city of roughly 13,000 people, they exerted political influence. As historian Van… Read More »The Power of Portland’s Black Voters
By Andy O’Brien Originally appeared in the July, 2023 issue of The Bollard On Aug. 16, 1834, Maine abolitionists put out the call to anti-slavery activists across the state to come to Augusta on the third Wednesday of October to… Read More »The Founders of Maine’s Early Anti-Slavery Organizations
By Andy O’Brien Originally appeared in The Bollard, February, 2023 Think I heard my captain say Pay me my money down T’morrow is my sailin’ day Pay me my money down Wish’t I was Mr. Coffin’s son Pay me my… Read More »Radical Mainers: When Portland’s Waterfront Resounded With the Songs of Black Maritime Workers
By Andy O’Brien Originally appeared in the April, 2023 issue of The Bollard. Late one evening in September, 1832, the rabble-rousing abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison disembarked from a ship in Portland Harbor. Garrison was fired up and ready to take… Read More »Radical Mainers: William Lloyd Garrison’s Spirited Speaking Tour of Maine
By Andy O’Brien Originally appeared in March, 2023 issue of The Bollard, On Sept. 19, 1826, an extraordinary letter signed by six African American men appeared in Portland’s Eastern Argus newspaper. It was very unusual for local papers to print… Read More »Radical Mainers: The Letter that Launched the Racial Justice Movement in Maine
