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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., shown with then-curator Marvin Sadik, viewed Bowdoin College’s groundbreaking art exhibition, “The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting.”

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made his only visit to Maine in May 1964, eight months after his “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington. He was invited to speak by a student political group at Bowdoin College.

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A small plaque at pew No. 23 in First Parish Church indicates where Harriet Beecher Stowe conceived “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

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The Rev. Mary Baard, associate pastor at First Parish Church in Brunswick, sits in pew No. 23, where Harriet Beecher Stowe conceived the novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at First Parish Church in Brunswick on May 6, 1964. Hear an audio recording of the speech at www.bowdoin.edu.

BRUNSWICK — It was a call for civil rights rarely heard north of the Piscataqua River.

The mesmerizing, musical quality of his voice filled the darkened, arched rafters of First Parish Church. His careful diction and measured delivery ensured maximum visceral impact on his 1,100 listeners.

The question, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said here on May 6, 1964, was whether the United States had made any real progress in ending racial segregation and inequality.

"We have come a long, long way," King allowed, "but we have a long, long way to go before the problem is really solved."

It was King's only visit to Maine; he was invited to speak by a student political group at Bowdoin College. Four years later, at age 39, the charismatic Baptist minister and civil rights leader would be assassinated, on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.

Only recently did the college get permission from the King Center in Atlanta to share an audio tape of King's speech, recorded nearly 45 years ago by the campus radio station WBOR. The 55-minute address can be heard today, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, through February, which is Black History Month, on Bowdoin's Web site, www.bowdoin.edu.

King came to Maine at an eventful time. Eight months earlier, on Aug. 28, 1963, he had delivered his historic "I Have A Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A few months after that, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, an event that King referenced in his Brunswick address.

By the time King spoke here, Congress was working on the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. It would be approved in July, outlawing racial segregation in schools, public places and employment.

"King's visit was a very big deal," said Frederick Stoddard, 66, a Boston psychiatrist who was president of Bowdoin's Political Forum in 1964. "For many of us, Bowdoin felt like an island of progressive thinking in a very conservative state. King's coming to Bowdoin succeeded in bringing the college and the state more into the present."

King came to Bowdoin with fellow civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, an organizer of the March on Washington. Rustin had spoken to a smaller audience on campus the day before.

On May 7, King viewed Bowdoin's groundbreaking art exhibition, "The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting." Later that day, he participated in a panel discussion on civil rights at St. Francis College in Biddeford, now the University of New England.

The panel included Stokely Carmichael, a Howard University student who would become chairman of the national Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1966.

But it was King's speech at First Parish Church, delivered to an overflow crowd, that gave a few Bowdoin students, professors and other Mainers a rare glimpse of his restrained power and fortified wisdom.

College officials asked to use the historic church for King's appearance because Bowdoin at the time had no auditorium large enough for such a highly anticipated event. Built in 1846, the church is located at the edge of the college campus, at Maine Street and Bath Road.

Stoddard, then a senior government major, wrote the letter inviting King to Bowdoin. When they met before the speech, King shook Stoddard's hand firmly and looked the younger man straight in the eye.

"I had a sense of the national movement, and I wanted to make a contribution," said Stoddard, who teaches at Harvard Medical School. "The handshake made me feel that I was making a contribution."

During King's address, the audience was silent but for a few coughs and occasional laughter. He leavened his speech with humor, literary references and history lessons. The pews, aisles and galleries were filled that evening.

"The church was packed to the gills. I was standing in the back," recalled...