A Troublemaker for Justice: Honoring Senator Rachel Talbot Ross
By Donna Loring
Black History Month is a time to reflect not only on the giants whose names fill our textbooks, but also on the living leaders who are shaping history before our eyes. In Maine, one of those leaders is Senator Rachel Talbot Ross.
I had a proverbial front-row seat when history was made on November 11, 2020. That was the day the Maine House of Representatives elected Rachel as Assistant Majority Leader on the first ballot the first African American, and the first African American woman, to be elected to legislative leadership in Maine’s two-hundred-year history.
People do not understand how difficult that is.
Leadership in the Legislature is rarely accidental. It is negotiated, discussed, and often decided long before the formal vote. Rachel entered that chamber as the first African American woman ever elected to serve there. She walked into those halls alone but she did not walk in quietly.
When her name was placed into nomination for leadership, many had already assumed the slate was settled. The speeches that day were considered a formality. But Rachel delivered a speech so powerful, so grounded in moral clarity and purpose, that she was elected on the first ballot. Normally leadership races require multiple rounds of voting. Not that day.
That moment was not luck. It was earned.
Rachel did not seek office for status. She sought it for justice. From the beginning, she focused her energy on those who were marginalized and silenced. She sponsored critical legislation on behalf of the Wabanaki Tribes and other communities too often overlooked by power.
One of the most significant bills she championed was LD 766, implementing key provisions of the Violence Against Women Act for Tribal Nations in Maine. That law allows non-Native abusers who commit crimes against Native women on Tribal lands to be prosecuted in Tribal Court. It was not easy legislation. It required persistence, negotiation, and a willingness to endure resistance. Many people contributed to its passage, but there would have been no bill without Rachel Talbot Ross.
She also authored the bill creating the Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations the first commission of its kind in Maine. That Commission has the authority to hold hearings, review legislation, and examine racial disparities embedded in our systems. It institutionalized accountability. It ensured that racial justice would not be treated as a seasonal conversation, but as an ongoing responsibility.
And when she introduced legislation to make June 19th, Juneteenth, an official state holiday That bill passed and is now State law. Rachel does not measure success solely by immediate victory. She measures it by whether the truth has been spoken and placed into the record. Change often begins that way.
Rachel reminds me of Nelson Mandela’s tribal name, Rolihlahla “troublemaker.” She is, in the best sense of the word, a troublemaker for social justice. She refuses to accept the comfort of silence. She does not back down when the conversation becomes uncomfortable. She understands that systems do not transform themselves people transform them.
As a Penobscot woman who has also walked those legislative halls, I know how heavy those doors can feel when you are the first or the only. Rachel has not only carried that weight; she has widened the doorway for others.
We are living in a time of profound transition in this country. The question before us is what kind of nation we intend to become. Leaders like Senator Rachel Talbot Ross force us to confront that question honestly. They insist that equity is not optional, that justice cannot wait, and that inclusion must be real.
This Black History Month, I honor her not only for the history she has made, but for the courage she shows every day in continuing to make it.
February 2026