Ninety-eight years after residents of Malaga floated their homes away from the island they called home, Marnie Darling Voter stood near where a schoolhouse once stood and listened to Gov. John Baldacci say “I’m sorry” for an episode of Maine history that some thought was better left untold.
In 1912, nearly 40 black, white and mixed-race people lived off the coast of Phippsburg on Malaga Island. Most earned a living fishing waters around the island and lived in dirt-floored houses. All but five were descended from Benjamin Darling, a black man who bought a nearby island in 1794.
Read the full story in the Portland/Cape Elizabeth Sentry.