spoke regularly about tolerance to local students and even addressed the Maine State Legislature in "support of a bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation". In addition, he co-authored the book Penitence with Ed Armstrong in 1994. Baines did not receive any of the profits of the book. That same year, Mabry expressed his regrets about his participation. He stated that he thinks about Charlie Howard every day. Today, a short distance from the site of Howard's death, a memorial has been erected; engraved on the stone are the words: “May we, the citizens of Bangor, continue to change the world around us until hatred becomes peacemaking and ignorance becomes understanding.” July 7, Howard's death date, is now Diversity Day in Bangor. Memorial vandalized In May 2011, vandals spray-painted graffiti and an anti-gay slur on Charlie Howard's memorial. Family and friends cleaned it up and rededicated it. In 2021, a stone bench was installed in Portsmouth’s Commercial Allery with an inscription of Howard’s favorite song “I Am What I Am,” from the musical “La Cage aux Folles…” Legacy in pop culture Charlie Howard's murder inspired a similar scene in Stephen King's 1986 novel It, in which three homophobic teenagers throw a young gay man, Adrian Mellon, over a bridge and into the Kenduskeag, where he was set upon and murdered by the novel's antagonist Pennywise. In the 2019 film adaption It Chapter Two, Canadian actor Xavier Dolan portrayed Adrian Mellon in the opening scene. Mark Doty wrote a poem about the murder called "Charlie Howard's Descent". The murder is also the inspiration for a novel by Bette Greene titled The Drowning of Stephan Jones. The line "faggot kicked into the icy river" in Adrienne Rich's poem Yom Kippur 1984 is a reference to Charlie Howard. See also History of violence against LGBT people in the United States Violence against LGBT people References Armstrong, Edward J. (1994). Penitence: A True Story. Bangor: Lucie Madden Associates. Preston, John. (1995). Winter's Light: Reflections of a Yankee Queer. Hanover NH: University Press of New England. Carnes, Jim. (1996). Us and Them: A History of Intolerance in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Gagnon, Dawn "Hate crime memorial plan debated" Bangor Daily News August 26, 2006 (accessed September 8, 2006) A Rose for Charlie. External links http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSmid=46997510&GRid=62191915& 1961 births 1984 deaths American victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes Deaths by person in Maine Deaths by