’65 rally against racism ‘proud time’ for Maine

PORTLAND – At the height of the nation’s civil rights movement, 2,000 people marched shoulder to shoulder down Congress Street to protest the fatal beating of a clergyman from Boston who was fighting for voting rights for blacks in Alabama.

The March 14, 1965, demonstration was, until recently, probably the largest ever in Maine. It was surpassed only in 2003 when a neo-Nazi rally in Lewiston drew a crowd of 4,000 to a counterdemonstration at Bates College.

The Portland rally 40 years ago paid tribute to the Rev. James Reeb, 38, who died March 11, two days after he was attacked by a group of white men after eating supper at a black-owned restaurant in Selma, Ala.

Reeb’s murder stirred the nation’s conscience. Marches were held around the country, and Portland was one of the largest held on March 14, a Sunday. There were smaller gatherings in Bangor and Brunswick.

“It was too much,” recalled Gerald Talbot, 73, then president of the fledgling Portland branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “People, as a society, can’t take too much. They can take a lot, but they can’t take too much.”

The event helped galvanize opposition to racism, both in Maine and around the country. Within two months, Maine adopted one of the nation’s first laws against discrimination in housing. By summer, President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act.

The Portland march, against a brisk March wind, stirred anger and sadness over Reeb’s death, along with pent-up frustration over the racism experienced by Maine’s relatively small black community.

The march also inspired a sense of recognition and accomplishment.

“It was a proud time,” Talbot said. “To march down Congress Street with all those people behind you, black and white, feeling the same thing, wanting the same thing. We were one.”