A new book chronicles African-American contributions to the state

LEWISTON – As a little girl, Elaine Kemp Bragdon figured that any African-American folks she saw on the streets of Lewiston were probably relatives.

She saw so few.

At school, she endured racist teasing and ignorance. Her dad was black, and her mom was white. She felt like there was no one like her.

“I’ve learned to bite my tongue,” she said.

But black families have always been here, contributing to Maine, as a first-of-its-kind book hopes to illustrate.

Titled “Maine’s Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of Its People,” the just-published, 429-page book follows African-American people here from the earliest days of Maine’s settlement to the present: from African-styled carvings found by archaeologists at Pemaquid to modern artist William Pope.L., who teaches at Bates College.

The book includes the work of 42 writers and was compiled by Gerald E. Talbot, a former leader of the Maine NAACP, and H.H. Price, a local writer and museum curator. It also includes 240 photographs, culled from public and private collections around the Northeast.

Among the people profiled is Bragdon’s great-great-grandfather, George Washington Kemp.

He was born into slavery in Virginia, freed during the Civil War and brought to Leeds, Maine, by Union Gen. O.O. Howard.

In the months after the war, Howard helped reunite Kemp with his wife and children, traveling to Virginia and beyond, returning home to Leeds with the whole family on Christmas Day in 1865.

The children went on to form the Kemp Family Singers, who toured halls across New England.

They sang, danced and played instruments before crowds who paid 25 cents apiece.

A turn-of-the-century ad hyped them in frightening terms:

“The colored Kemp family from the old sunny south will give a grande concert consisting of songs, dances and shouts, parts sung and acted as they were in the old sunny south by a genuine colored troupe.”

The words have lost much of their sting, said Bragdon, now 53. But it still smarts.

“I guess I’ve just grown used to it, she said. “It was a different age.”

Bragdon has spent more than 20 years researching her family.

It wasn’t easy.

“I always wondered where George Washington Kemp came from,” she said.

In many places where genealogists commonly look for information, the names of African-Americans were never listed, she said.

She spent uncounted hours searching the archives at Lewiston Public Library for newspaper stories. Eventually, the pieces came together.

Bragdon, Talbot and Price will be among those scheduled to take part in a panel discussion Tuesday evening at the Marsden Hartley Cultural Center at the Lewiston Public Library.

They also will sign copies of the book, which will be sold at the event.

The book was co-published by the Gardiner-based Tilbury House and Visible Black History, a partnership founded by Price and Talbot.

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