The Civil Rights Team will be honored for its work in the Many and One Rally.

LEWISTON – Members of the Lewiston High School Civil Rights Team will accept a special youth award from the Maine Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the Doubletree Hotel in Portland.

They will represent hundreds of classmates who prepared for and participated in last January’s Many and One Rally, held to counter that of a white supremacist group, World Church of the Creator.

The rallies stemmed from the influx of Somali immigrants into the Lewiston community and the variety of reactions to an open letter Mayor Larry Raymond had sent to Somali community leaders.

LHS students visited every class in the school, urging support for the Somalis and diversity in general, presenting information about the World Church of the Creator and reports of violent incidents at their rallies held elsewhere. They also collected more than 1,000 student-signed cutouts of hands that were attached to a 24-foot banner displayed at the rally held at Bates College.

The students spoke to the 4,000 in attendance about how proud they were of Lewiston’s response to the white supremacists and about the importance of tolerance and friendship between students of different religions and races.

The group’s annual Roger Baldwin Award will be presented to the Blue Hill Public Library in recognition of its actions to speak out and defend library users’ privacy in the face of the USA Patriot Act, whose Section 215 provides for expanded power to seize personal records, including a library patron’s reading matter.

There is no cost to attend the event, but reservations must be made by calling 774-5444.