Looks like the Bangor area will be having a Kwanzaa celebration after all, thanks to the efforts of one woman who has decided to brave the recent death threats and organize a party.
The trouble started several weeks ago when a Brewer man -- Kendrick Sawyer, 75 -- told his physician at Togus that he had a .45 and was planning on shooting "any and all blacks" who would show up for the Maine NAACP's Kwanzaa event in Bangor. He also reportedly said that he did not like blacks or Hispanics, and that he thought that Maine should be a whites-only state. He made the same remarks to military officials who came to investigate the threats.
After this, Maine's (mostly white) NAACP chapter began holding their meetings at the Bangor police station in the hope that they'd be safer there.
Together with police, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives entered Sawyer's house and confiscated his gun. They did not, however, take him into custody.
At the moment, Sawyer is apparently somewhere in Maine, though not at his house. The authorities say that they know where he is, but they refuse to share this info with the public. Instead, they say that they are putting together a permanent restraining order that will direct Sawyer to stay away from all members of the NAACP, and they report that they are working out what to charge him with (probably 'terrorizing', they've said).
While Sawyer is still out loose, the NAACP decided that they did not feel safe in holding their annual Kwanzaa celebration, so they announced that they have cancelled the event.
However, this did not sit well with a Bangor businesswoman, Assata Sherrill. Sherrill, a retired policewoman who now works as an event planner, feels that cancelling Kwanzaa would be tantamount to rewarding terror, and so she has decided to put together a big, public Kwanzaa festival anyway. The First Congregational Church in Brewer have offered the use of their building. So it looks as though the event will be taking place not in big worldly Bangor, but right in Sawyer's hometown, which should really frost him.
Sherrill, by the way, is the woman who was attacked by three teens shouting slurs and throwing rocks at her as she walked her dog at the Bangor waterfront earlier this year. Two of her assailants were later arrested.
"I'm black and there is no changing that." Sherril told NEWS CENTER. "As a black person you know you live under a microscope or a lens. You realize things are going to happen and you have to go on living your life."
http://www.wlbz2.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=75926More about this situation:
http://bangornews.com/news/t/city.aspx?articleid=157402...http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...http://www.bangornews.com/news/t/city.aspx?articleid=14...