Attendees celebrated James Weldon Johnson Day Monday, June 17 on Wiscasset Common with the introduction of a new plaque on the bench that memorializes the famed poet and Civil Rights advocate killed in a car-train crash downtown in 1938.

Poetry and photography contest winners were announced. Johnson’s great-niece, K. Melanie Edwards took part in the awards ceremony, said Wiscasset’s Heather Jones, who built the bench in time for the first James Weldon Johnson Day in 2022.

Winners, as shared by Jones, were, in poetry, first place, Mae Applegate of Vinalhaven; second, Henry Anderson of Edgecomb; and third, Ariana Smith of Evanston, Illinois; and for photos, first place, Nina Barufaldi of Bar Harbor; and second, Harlow Roberts of New York, New York.