Today is the 10th anniversary of the "Many and One" rally in Lewiston, Maine. It's brilliantly sunny this morning, like that day. With one big difference.
I remember cold.
Scary cold. The type that makes
you wonder if you’ve made a critical, frostbite-causing mistake by choosing the
thin cotton gloves instead of the thick ski mittens.
Standing outside in the long, straggling line of people
wrapped around the auditorium on the Bates College campus the afternoon of
January 11, 2003, I worried about frostbite not only to my fingers and toes but
to my kids, ages 10 and 9. What were we
thinking? I wondered to myself. They’re
going to freeze out here, and for what?
Do they really get it?
But how could we not
bring them? This was the “Many and One”
rally, an enormous community effort to respond to thinly veiled threats and
hate speech that had been directed at Lewiston’s Somali community by members of
a national white supremacist group, the World Church of the Creator. This was the result of the Mayor of
Lewiston’s letter in the local paper, asking the Somali newcomers to “exercise
some discipline” and tell their friends and relatives to stay away because Lewiston was
“maxed-out.” This was the response of
the people of Maine to hatred and bigotry, the
land of Joshua Chamberlain
This was turning out to the largest police action in the state’s
history. I’d never seen so many cops.
But the kids seemed completely unaware of the cold, the
armed presence, and the “politics” which had led to our attendance that
day. They were having too much fun
playing with their friends in the snow outside the auditorium.
Eventually, the long line snaked forward, and we found seats
in the cavernous auditorium. We were
lucky: about 1000 people had to remain outside when the fire code limits were
met. Sound from within was piped out and
hot chocolate was served and … wow.
Those people stayed. In that
bitter cold, they remained outside in order to hear what was said, in order to
simply be present.
For the life of me, I can’t remember specifics about the
speeches made that afternoon. There were a lot of elected officials. There was chanting, people asking Where’s the
Mayor? Because he wasn’t
present. There was serious applause when
young people from the community, Somali youth, stood in front of that crowd and
spoke into a microphone in a language not yet their own. Most of all, there was a sense of wonder that
permeated the whole setting. Strangers
kept looking at each other and grinning and saying, “Can you believe this? Can you get over this crowd?”
It was a good day to be from Maine .
My kids tell me they remember the big snow piles outside the
auditorium that day. I’m content that
when they hear or read about the “Many and One” rally in the future, they’ll be
content that their parents made sure they were there.
Of course, on the other side of town, at the armory, there
was a very different sort of rally going on that day. Members of the World Church
Tonight, at the Lewiston Public Library, there’s a gathering
to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the rally. It promises to be a
balmy 25 degrees. I don’t believe any
police presence is required.
What a difference a decade makes.
Maria Padian’s next
novel, “Out of Nowhere,” due out from Random House on February 13, 2013, was
inspired by events in Lewiston Lewiston
