PORTLAND — Somewhere along the line someone had to give the door a push, and now that door has been opened.

Those are the words Gerald Talbot used to describe his role as Maine’s first Black legislator, which were repeated several times Thursday as hundreds of people sang, clapped, laughed and cried during a memorial service for Talbot at Merrill Auditorium.

Talbot, the civil rights leader, author and politician, died May 9 at age 94. With his casket on the stage, he was showered with praise from politicians, clergymen and family members alike who said his trailblazing accomplishments fighting for equality were matched by his character and love for family.

The door he opened has led to several other “firsts” in Maine, including his own daughter Rachel Talbot Ross, who became the first Black House speaker in 2022 and is currently a senator representing Portland.

Gov. Janet Mills, who became Maine’s first female governor in 2019, said Talbot showed up to her victory party because he “wanted to witness history.”

Mills called him determined, persistent and said “his thirst for justice was never satisfied.”

For those who knew him, history was a big part of who he was. Born in Bangor, Talbot was an eighth generation Mainer and the descendant of an enslaved man who fought in the Revolutionary War.

During his life he curated a huge collection of historical items that were once part of a traveling museum operating out of his family’s Volkswagen van. In 1995, the collection was donated to the University of Southern Maine.

Maine Sen. Mark Lawrence, D-Eliot, said Talbot’s love of history came from wanting to recognize and not overlook Maine’s history of slavery and other truths that were avoided for many years.

“He stood up, talked about those things, not to live in the past but to show us what things we have to overcome, that not everyone in society starts in the same place,” he said.

In 1963, Talbot participated in the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. The next year, Talbot revived Portland’s chapter of the NAACP from a five-year hiatus and served as its president. He traveled to the South and helped register people to vote.

Meanwhile, he and his family dealt with discrimination at home.

Once while looking for housing, he and his wife, Anita, were told by a landlord that they “would rather burn the place down than rent to a black family.” But instead of shrinking away, Talbot sued, and his case became the first successful suit under Maine’s fair housing law.

His revival of the NAACP cost him job opportunities. But some people were watching his work with enthusiasm.

Donna Loring, who served as the Penobscot Nation’s representative to the Maine Legislature and was a senior adviser on tribal affairs to Mills, said Talbot was a source of inspiration to Maine’s Wabanaki people.

“Jerry provided the spark that ignited hope among the Wabanaki people, hope that maybe we too could break free from the cycle of poverty, exclusion and state control that had defined so much of our history,” she said.

She called him “strong and stubborn,” and that he understood that “progress doesn’t happen on its own.”

Loring said Talbot would say the work “is far from finished.”

“The greatest way we can honor his life is not only to remember what he accomplished, but to continue the work he began,” she said. “Maine will not change on its own. We need more people like Jerry to change it.”

In his youth, Talbot played football and ran track at Bangor High School. He met his future wife, Anita Cummings, and began hitchhiking to Portland any chance he could get. The pair married in 1954, and had four daughters. Several people spoke about the couple’s 72-year marriage Thursday.

Portland Mayor Mark Dion said he met Talbot 40 years ago when Talbot brought Portland officials together to talk about escalating hate crimes in the city. They went together to meet a family that was victim to a cross-burning.

Dion said Talbot was a “good man” rather than a “nice guy.”

“It was a time when being different was dangerous,” he said. “Nice guys stay behind closed doors, hoping someone else will keep the peace. Jerry stepped out to fight it. Despite his own scars, he continued to push others up. That is what good men do.”

Dion said Talbot became his tutor on the Black experience in Maine, and challenged him to think about how racism touches everyone.

“He showed us how to look a dangerous world in the eye without flinching,” he said.

When Talbot entered hospice care, his chaplain, the Rev. Kenneth Wish, said it didn’t take long for him to realize Talbot’s magnetism.

He said Talbot carried his many accomplishments with humility, and held respect for those who didn’t agree with him. But, at same time, he showed pride in some things — like the former Riverton Elementary School in Portland that was renamed in his honor. More than once Talbot asked Wish to drive him past it.

Between speakers, musicians on the organ and saxophone played soulful renditions of songs like “Amazing Grace” with the help of clapping from the audience.

Portland musician Samuel James got the audience going once more while playing the resonator guitar.

Talbot’s grandson, Walter Phillips, said his grandfather was “the rock of our life.” He said his accomplishments will live on, but that the love he had for his family was what he’ll remember most. Phillips walked to his grandparents house every day after school, and would play basketball or throw a baseball with his grandfather.

“He had the old 1940s mitt, and used to say it was Jackie Robinson’s mitt, and I believed him for a little while,” he said.

“We never doubted how much he loved us,” said his daughter Rachel Talbot Ross, speaking Thursday with her three siblings. “We will miss you deeply, and we will carry with us your lessons, your laughter, your compassion and your belief in community, justice, family and love.”