Portland-based nonprofit The Third Place hosted its fourth annual Black Excellence Awards on Aug. 9 at Caswell Farm in Gray, honoring eighth-generation Mainers and immigrants alike.

“At 92, I am grateful to be recognized by a younger generation,” said Gerald E. Talbot, who was the first Black legislator to serve in Maine and the founding president of the Portland chapter of the NAACP. “Keep up the good fight for peace, justice and freedom. I would like to extend this award to include my wife, Anita. She has been working and fighting alongside me every skip of the way.”

Talbot is an eighth-generation Mainer. Another honoree, semi-retired journalist Bob Greene, 88, has ancestors in Maine going back at least that far. “We are not newcomers,” Greene said. “The first Black person in Maine was a translator named DeCosta in 1608 – that’s 12 years before the Pilgrims arrived. We’ve been here, and we’ve always been productive here.”

A third trailblazer from their generation – Clifford “Kippy” Richardson – was honored 20 years posthumously. Back in 1971, Richardson was the first Black man voted into municipal office in Portland.

“One of the reasons that we recognize people who have been doing the work for a long time as well as newer people is that we build on each other,” said Adilah Muhammad, who founded The Third Place to create social and professional opportunities for Black Mainers. “People are filling in the gaps with what was missing in our community.”

The following women were honored for filling those gaps:

• Darmita Wilson, the Northern Light Health vice president who is bringing medical students from Morehouse College in Atlanta to rural Maine for their residencies – filling a need for more doctors in Maine while diversifying the workforce.

• Lisa Jones, who heard that nine out of 10 visitors to Maine are white and founded Black Travel Maine to share the state’s cultural, culinary and natural beauty with Black and multiethnic travelers.

• Claudette Ndayininahaze, who founded nonprofit In Her Presence to help immigrant women learn English, find jobs and make community connections.

• Amara Ifeji, a Maine Environmental Education Association leader and internationally recognized environmental justice advocate – at just 22.

• Gabriela Alcalde, who leads Sewall Foundation in taking an equity-focused approach to philanthropy.

• And poet Nyamuon “Moon” Nguany Machar, whose newest initiative, #WEOUTSIDE, helps asylum-seeking teens explore Maine’s outdoors.

“Each story, each narrative, adds to the human story,” Machar said, “and accepting all the stories represented makes a community stronger.”

Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer and photographer based in Scarborough. She can be reached at amyparadysz@gmail.com.