A Maine city that's 90% White now has a Somali mayor [cnn.com]

Alison Cebulla 12/8/216:00 AM

By Catherine E. Schoichet, Photo: Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald/Getty Images, CNN US, December 7, 2021

Deqa Dhalac saw it in their faces when she started campaigning.

Some people, she says, seemed scared to open their doors when she knocked. Others saw her hijab and assumed she didn't speak English.

But Dhalac kept knocking and telling her story.

And she says a lot has changed since those days back in 2018, when she first ran for City Council in South Portland, Maine -- and won. On Monday she became the first Black mayor of the small city on the state's Southern Coast. And she's believed to be the first Somali American mayor in the United States.

[Please click here to read more.]

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