Bangor woman takes a stand after waterfront racial incident

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BANGOR – Most of the time, Assata Sherrill says, people are simply curious, not judgmental.

The black woman has lived in predominantly white Maine for the past four years and considers it her home.

But last weekend, as she walked her year-old German shepherd, Jade, along the railroad tracks near the Bangor Waterfront, Sherrill encountered something worse than judgment: hate.

Three teenage boys threw rocks and shouted racial slurs at her. She wasn’t injured, and after staring down the boys she decided to confront them.

Sherrill said the most irritating part of the confrontation was how the youths acted as though nothing had happened and sauntered off.

“When you’re black you learn to pick your battles,” Sherrill said.

This was a battle she wanted to win.

She reported the incident to police. And she decided to talk about it publicly.

Bangor police said Friday they have identified three teenagers, one 17 and two 13, all from Bangor, who have admitted to some involvement in the crime.

No one was arrested Friday, but there is probable cause for some to be charged, acting Police Chief Peter Arno said. An investigator worked exclusively on the case from Monday until Thursday, Arno said.

“We do take these cases very seriously,” Arno said. People should be able “to go out for a walk and be confident that they are not going to be subject to an act like this just because of the color of their skin.”

The department will speak with prosecutors next week, Arno said. One possible charge is disorderly conduct. The Maine Attorney General’s Office will review the incident to determine whether it was a hate crime under the Maine Civil Rights Act.

“Words can hurt some people,” Sherrill, 53, said in an interview Thursday. “Sometimes parents don’t teach children how to process what comes out of their mouths.”

Sherrill grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Mich., a member of the only black family in the neighborhood.

After living for most of her adult life in the city of Detroit, where the majority is black, Sherrill again has settled in a community where she is in the minority.

An event planner and massage therapist, she moved to Bar Harbor in 2002, then to Bangor two years ago.

“Maine is home for me,” Sherrill said. “Home is wherever I choose for it to be.”

Her daughter, Ashley, 16, is one of the few black students at Bangor High School.

When Ashley told her high school friends the story of what had happened to her mother last Saturday, they reacted with shock, she said.

“They didn’t think anything like that would happen here,” Ashley said.

Such incidents can be avoided with education, she said.

“I am so happy” the boys were caught, Sherrill said. “I would like to see all three of them go through some sort of civil rights program and bullying education.”

But Sherrill isn’t content to leave the education to others.

In Ashley Sherrill’s first week of classes in Bar Harbor, somebody used a racial slur against her, her mother said.

So Mom chose to do battle. She called the school.

“She never had a problem again,” Sherrill said. “And she went on to really enjoy her time there.”

When a man kicked and shouted at a pregnant black woman in the Ellsworth area last September, Sherrill was among the speakers at an anti-hate rally in Hancock, where she urged the crowd not to fear her black skin.

“You learn how to deal with [race] situations,” Sherrill said. “No matter where I go, I’m going to be black. It doesn’t take another black’s company for me to feel comfortable here.”