Black Mainer anti-racism hero

“I felt that fighting discrimination was the most important thing I could do as an elected official. I said then and I believe now that any doctrine of superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous.’

— Gerald E. Talbot (born 1931 and one of the few Mainers with an African-American background), civil-rights leader and former state representative from Portland.

An eighth-generation Mainer, Talbot traced his ancestry to black Revolutionary War veteran Abraham Talbett.

Talbot was the first Black state legislator in Maine, the founding president of the Portland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and president of the Maine State Board of Education under Gov. Joseph Brennan. In 2020, the Riverton Elementary School, in Portland, was renamed the Gerald E. Talbot Community School.