RUMFORD — The experience of a Black person in New England is a special one.

That’s the overall message of the “Black New England” exhibit on display at Rumford Public Library for Black History Month.

Adelaide Solomon-Jordan, of Rumford, a historian whose research includes early New England African American biography and history, led a two-hour discussion of the Black New England experience Friday morning at the library.

“Everything is different for us, and we have found ways to accommodate it when we had to,” Soloman-Jordon said.

Solomon-Jordan, 80, who has lived in Rumford since 2003, offered up her collection of books, newspapers, photos and other items from her home. The exhibit will be on display until the end of the month.

“For Black History Month, Adelaide had offered some time ago to do something for it. I took her up on the idea,” library Director Abby Austin said. “She really did a good job putting some items together that appreciated the history of African Americans.”

Soloman-Jordan has been working on the display from the beginning of the month. She’s been adding stuff to it and adjusting it and finalized it last week.

One of the Black leaders of note featured in her collection is Benjamin Elijah Mays, president of Morehouse College from 1940 to 1967, adviser to four presidents and a mentor to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mays’ name is chiseled in Muskie Monument at the Rumford Information Center, Solomon-Jordan said.

Mays laid some of the foundations of the Civil Rights Movement, and presided over the Atlanta Board of Education from 1969 to 1978, where he initiated the racial desegregation of Atlanta.

Soloman-Jordon showed several examples of the hundreds of weekly Black-owned newspapers that have been produced nationally.

While much of the collection highlights the accomplishments of Black people, some items examine pieces of the difficult history they have had in this country. One book in her collection about African American health referred to high rate of Black women dying within a year childbirth.

“Up until about seven years ago, they were still teaching medical students that I felt pain differently than white people,” Solomon-Jordan said. “There were pictures of a Black woman on a table with all these white medical students standing around and they were going to do a gynecological exam on her without anesthesia. Another example of everything is different for us.”

Soloman-Jordan retired as an educator from Rumford schools in 2020. She has researched her family history, beginning with her parents and other ancestors who came to the U.S. from Bermuda and the Grand Cayman Islands in the early 1900s.

She has previously served as chair of the education committee for the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine and is a board representative for its Vision 2020 project created to honor Black Mainers and other racial minorities.

“Maine is such a white state,” Austin said. “It’s good that we have somebody in the community like (Soloman-Jordan) who can remind us that even though we are so predominantly white here, it isn’t the case in other areas. She’s constantly reminding me of things I learned in my history class.”

To view the display, visit the Reading Room at Rumford Public Library at 56 Rumford Ave. during regular business hours through the month of February.