MLK Day Panel to Discuss ‘The State of Civil Rights in Maine’

Maine’s attorney general and four other individuals with differing personal and professional perspectives will address the topic “The State of Civil Rights in Maine” as part of eastern and central Maine’s 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

The free, online event will be livestreamed on YouTube from 9:30–10:45 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 17. The MLK Day celebration is co-sponsored by the Greater Bangor Area Branch NAACP and the University of Maine Alumni Association.

Aaron Frey, who, as attorney general, is the state’s chief civil rights enforcement official, will open the main part of the program with formal remarks about the event’s theme. Following his remarks, Frey will be joined by four others for a conversation about the topic: Maulian Dana of Indian Island, Penobscot Nation Tribal ambassador; State Rep. Richard Evans, a medical doctor from Dover-Foxcroft; David Patrick of Bangor, a racial equity and justice educator and consultant; and State Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross of Portland, the assistant majority leader of the Maine House of Representatives. Dana and Talbot Ross co-chair Maine’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Maine Tribal Populations.

Opening remarks will be presented by Joan Ferrini-Mundy, president of the University of Maine and the University of Maine at Machias; Michael Alpert, president of the Greater Bangor Area Branch NAACP; and Jojo Oliphant, a member of the University of Maine Alumni Association’s board of directors.

Visit https://www.umainealumni.com/event/mlk2022/ for details on accessing the event on YouTube.