Strong Women and their Broad Influence Lecture by Carolyn Gage: LaRue Spiker and Louise Gilbert

LaRue Spiker is celebrated on Mount Desert Island as an activist, environmentalist, and editor for the Bar Harbor Times, but many people do not know that LaRue Spiker and her life partner Louise Gilbert courageously put their lives and their freedom on the line in one of the most violent landmark incidents in the Civil Rights Era: the Wade House bombing. In 1954, an African American family moved into a home in a white neighborhood in Louisville.  Within days, racist signs and a burning cross appeared near their yard, and the windows in the home were shot out. A small group of activists volunteered to keep guard in the home at night so that the family could sleep. LaRue and Louise were among these five guardians. One night the house was bombed, and the five were accused of having planted the bomb themselves to incite a riot. Arrested and jailed on charges of sedition, the women faced the very real possibility of a fourteen-year prison sentence. The Wade House Bombing became a national turning point in the struggle for housing desegregation. Understanding the McCarthy era with its Communist and homosexual witch hunts, today we can appreciate and celebrate the stunning heroism of these lesbians who made Mount Desert Island their home for twenty-five years. 

Carolyn Gage is a playwright, performer, director, and activist. The author of nine collections of lesbian and feminist themed plays and eighty-three plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history.