Looking back at tragedy, forward to equal rights

“We are a gentle, angry people and we are fighting for our lives …” These are the words to one of the songs we sang almost 25 years ago as we marched to the State Street Bridge the night after Charlie Howard was thrown to his death into the Kenduskeag Stream. Twenty-five years is a long time to live with a tragedy such as this senseless death. A quarter of a century seems endless when you are still fighting the same fights, arguing the same arguments, celebrating the same small positive changes you were on July 7, 1984.

The days following Charlie’s death were filled with outrage, not just from the gay and lesbian community, but from many of Bangor’s citizens. As the news of this hate crime spread throughout Maine and New England, and then became national news, Bangor hung its head in shame. People wept openly in the streets. People screamed at each other, families fought amongst themselves. And the churches stood silent, with one exception. A small church with deep historical roots in Bangor stood tall and cried “Never again.”

This was Charlie’s church. This is where he worshiped on Sunday mornings, and this is where the dignity of all people was held up as part of the moral code. This was the Unitarian Church of Bangor. This is the church where great orators like Emerson and Fosdick had preached in days gone by. This is where a new beginning arose out of what was a senseless act of cruelty. Here began the healing. Here began the struggle to see a light in all that was dark in Bangor and the surrounding area. Here is where Bangor area gays, lesbians and straight people formed a coalition, BAGLSC, sat down and talked, making honest attempts to understand one another, beginning a journey that one might consider the first steps in the Maine equal rights movement. BAGLSC is no longer, but that movement started in a small brick church continues every day in Maine.

Charlie Howard’s death forced the city to look at itself and explore what part the good citizens had taken in this death, how complacent people had become about name calling, bullying and acts of bigotry. Was it true that this was the will of God? Some people were hearing this from the pulpits in our fair city, and it was said loudly at school committee meetings that summer.

Bangor responded with one of the first equal rights ordinances in the state. The local government ensured that Bangor’s reputation as a city full of hate and bigotry would rise out of the proverbial ashes so we could start the process of healing by becoming open and welcoming.

Recently, the city council gave overwhelming approval for a memorial to be placed near the place where Howard was tossed into the stream, screaming for his life because he could not swim and because he had chronic asthma. The memorial looks down stream, looks toward the future. It does not stare back at that tragedy. One can sit and enjoy the sounds of the city, the plantings and the inscription which reads: “May we the citizens of Bangor continue to change the world around us until hatred becomes compassion and fear becomes understanding. Charlie Howard, an openly gay man, died here on July 7, 1984, at the hands of hatred and fear.”

We are preparing to celebrate all that has happened to us as a city, as gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual and transgendered people in the past 25 years. Activities will run for six days in Bangor to celebrate, to help ensure this kind of deed never happens again, and to help us continue moving forward peacefully in our communal lives.

Twenty-five years is a long time; it is a generation of changes. Come help us celebrate those changes and the changes still to come for all people as we strive for justice, compassion, and understanding. We will begin the festivities on July 7 at 6:30 p.m. with a short vespers service at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor on Park Street. Right after that, we will walk to the bridge and dedicate the Charlie Howard Memorial. All are welcome to join any and all of the evening’s activities and all the activities following through until Sunday morning, July 12. For “We are a gentle, angry people” and, surely, we will be “singing, singing for our lives.”

Deborah H. Carney of Milford was a student at Bangor Theological Seminary the summer Charlie Howard was murdered. She is now an administrator at Commonsense Housing, Inc. in Eddington.