SUPPORTER APPRECIATION 2021

From October 13-18, 2021, in place of our regular India Street Society Gathering, ILAP offered “People’s History of Portland” walking tours with Seth Goldstein from Atlantic Black Box for our India Street Society, Advocates for Justice, and dedicated volunteers. The walking tour series, generously sponsored by Norway Savings Bank, began at One India Street, home of ILAP’s first offices, and took us throughout downtown Portland, ending at the Abyssinian Meeting House.

The tour highlighted stories too often untold about our region’s historically marginalized communities, including the Wabanaki people, generations of the African diaspora, immigrants, and others who were critical in shaping our shared history. It is based on Daniel Minter’s markers for the Portland Freedom Trail and researched by Seth and his colleagues at Atlantic Black Box.

“It has changed the way I see our town and region, and I am so grateful for that perspective,” reflected one attendee. Another attendee particularly enjoyed “learning more about Portland’s growth and economic dependence on slavery and the Underground Railroad in Portland.”

To reimagine the future, we must better understand our past. We hope these tours are part of an ongoing conversation about Maine’s history and its future.

Special thanks to the Portland Food Co-op and Snell Family Farm for generously providing refreshments for the tours.

Atlantic Black Box

The Atlantic Black Box is a grassroots historical recovery project that empowers communities throughout New England to research, reveal, and begin reckoning with the region’s complicity in the slave trade while re-centering the stories of its racially marginalized groups. To learn more and support their work, visit atlanticblackbox.com.