Honoring the life and legacy of Charlie Howard

PORTSMOUTH — Meet Charlie Howard.

He died 35 years ago on July 7, a 23-year-old gay man thrown from a bridge in Bangor, Maine, by three teens who ignored his cries that he could not swim.

"Not many people in Bangor know that Charlie was born and raised in Portsmouth, even though he moved to Bangor barely six months before he was killed," said Sarah Cornell, supervisor of technical services at Portsmouth Public Library.

She is on the steering committee of the Seacoast LGBT History Project, which is organizing a public nondenominational remembrance service for Howard at the South Church at 7 p.m. on Sunday, July 7.

"It feels like an important time to reintroduce Portsmouth to Charlie," Cornell said. "We need to remember how joyful and brave he was. We also need to take responsibility for how he was treated here."

Bob Lister was Howard's primary teacher from 1976 to 1980 at Portsmouth High School.

“He had some learning difficulties and was in my program," Lister said. "Charlie was a very caring person who was always concerned about others.”

Lister said even when there was evidence he was being bullied, "Charlie always seemed to turn the other cheek. He would always convey his feeling that he was his own individual. I am convinced that had he lived, he would have been a prominent advocate for the rights of individuals."

Lister, who went on to become school superintendent and served as mayor of Portsmouth in 2014 and 2015, will be one of the speakers at the July 7 remembrance. A proclamation from Mayor Jack Blalock will be read and the South Church Folk choir will provide music.

Bangor has its own annual memorial service for Howard; it always ends with participants throwing flowers into Kenduskeag Stream, where Howard died.

As the Bangor Daily News reported in a special 2014 series on Howard's death, he and friend Roy Ogden were walking home from a Unitarian Church potluck that fateful night in 1984. Ogden later told police a car pulled up and three youths inside the vehicle demanded to know if they were gay.

The confrontation escalated and Ogden and Howard ran across State Street, pursued by the trio. They grabbed Howard at the bridge over the Kenduskeag, and threw him in. Ogden ran to pull a nearby fire alarm. But it was too late for Howard, who was found drowned some hours later.

Daniel Ness, 17, Shawn I. Mabry, 16, and James Francis Baines, 15, were originally charged with murder. But the charges were reduced to manslaughter after a judge decided they should be tried as juveniles. All were free by age 21.

The Bangor Daily News article begins with a quote from author Stephen King, who lives in Maine.

"I think the death of Charlie Howard shocked people in the Bangor area out of their complacency about matters of sexual preference and prejudice," King said. "I know it did me."

Tom Kaufhold, founder of the Seacoast LGBT History Project, said the goal of the July 7 service is to raise awareness of Howard in his hometown. The project is raising money for a memorial marker and bench for Howard; donations will be accepted at the July 7 service. The project has also created a GoFundMe page titled A Homecoming For Charlie Howard to raise funds.

A traveling exhibit telling the story of Howard's murder and its effect on Maine's LGBTQ+ communities will be on display at South Church Unitarian Universalist at 292 State St. Participants in the service will each be given a white rose so they can walk to the nearby Memorial Bridge and throw the roses in the Piscataqua in remembrance of Howard, who is buried in Kittery.

Cornell hopes to see all generations at the event.

"We have a really strong LGBTQ youth community now, and I like to imagine Charlie thriving if he had had access to organizations like Seacoast Outright," Cornell said.

The traveling exhibit, created by LGBTQ+ Collection, the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine and University of Southern Maine Libraries, will also be on display at the Portsmouth Athenaeum's Randall Gallery on Friday, July 5 from 5 to 8 p.m.

That is the closing night at the Athenaeum, 9 Market Square, for "Seacoast LGBT History: 50 Years of Rainbow Reflections."