The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Multicultural Center presents an opening reception for Bagels and Grits: Exploring Jewish Life in the Deep South, an exhibition of photographs by Bill Aron, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, in Chase Hall Gallery, 56 Campus Ave.

This photographic essay of contemporary Southern Jewish life features 46 images and text panels that explore home and community life, Jewish traditions and sacred spaces, livelihood and the South’s changing character. The reception is open to the public free of charge, and the exhibition will be on display at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ through Wednesday, Oct. 5. For more information, call 207-786-8376.

“Southern and Jewish are two words not often associated with each other,” says Aron, author of Shalom Y’All: Images of Jewish Life in the American South (Algonquin Books, 2002). Aron’s photographs, commissioned by the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in Jackson, Miss., portray the Southern Jewish experience through photographs and first-person stories.

Aron describes his work as a multidimensional portrait of contemporary Jewish life in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina as it has evolved from the early 1700s. His subjects, he says, are “people who are southerners as defined by their location and lifestyle and Jews by virtue of their religion and their heritage.”

Aron’s work is part of permanent collections at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum and the National Museum of American Jewish History, among others.

Aron has had more than 20 solo exhibitions, taken part in more than 25 theme exhibitions and has contributed to a number of books. His work has been featured in many magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.

The Multicultural Center celebrates and promotes the diverse cultural experiences that each member of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College brings to the community.

A showing of work by Portland artist Daniel Minter will be on display at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College through Feb. 28 in an exhibition presented for Black History Month. “A Heavy Grace: Paintings and Sculpture” opens with a gallery reception featuring food and music from African American and Brazilian culinary traditions at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, in Chase Hall Gallery, Chase Hall, Campus Avenue, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. The public is invited to attend the reception and the exhibit, both sponsored by the Multicultural Center, free of charge. Call 207-786-8376 for more information.

Minter is a painter, sculptor, illustrator and arts educator whose work is steeped in the context of African American and African diaspora culture. The designer of the 2004 U.S. Postal Service Kwanza stamp, he is a noted illustrator of several children’s books.

“Minter collects the implements, the figures, the cultural tools of Black experience in diaspora and gives them iconic status,” writes Latin American historian and theologian Rachel Harding. Says Harding: “Many of the figures in Minter’s art are those of ordinary black life, especially of the mid-20th century rural south: hot combs and axes; straw brooms and jack-knives; snakes, jars and crows; round women, big men and long-limbed trees. Through his skilled gaze and carefully honed instinct, Minter elicits deeper meanings from the mundane.”

The Rev. John Mendez, pastor of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, N.C., and the Winston-Salem Chronicle’s 1994 Man of the Year, is the keynote speaker for the 2005 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. Classes at the college are canceled and special programming is scheduled throughout the day with an emphasis on the theme From Montgomery to Memphis: Martin Luther King’s Legacy of Labor, Justice and Dignity.

Scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Monday, Jan. 17, in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Chapel, Mendez’s address is part of a celebration of King’s life and work that includes performances, workshops, exhibitions and a debate with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Morehouse and Spelman college participants. All events are open to the public free of charge. For more information, call 207-786-6400 or see

On the eve of King’s 1968 assassination, the civil rights leader was in Memphis, Tenn., organizing striking sanitation workers and planning for a poor-people’s march in the nation’s capital. King’s support for non-unionized labor is a central component of his legacy that is often overlooked, says John McClendon, associate professor of African American and American cultural studies at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Chaired by McClendon, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ committee that organizes the annual observance of King’s birthday chose to recognize King’s commitment to labor as this year’s theme.

MLK Day events at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ start with an opening reception at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 14, in Chase Hall Gallery, Campus Avenue, for Unfree Labor and the Production of Language: An Exhibition of Words, a display curated by Czerny Brasuell, director of multicultural affairs, and Baltasar Fra-Molinero, associate professor of Spanish. On display through Jan. 24, the exhibition showcases artifacts reflecting the Creole languages that arose as a result of slavery and the African diaspora.

In a second exhibition honoring King’s birthday and Black History Month, the college displays from Jan. 10 to Feb. 15 in the George and Helen Ladd Library. The first roving editor for Ebony Magazine, Davis was a photojournalist and U.S. foreign service officer who was mentored by the Morehouse College President Benjamin Mays, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Class of 1920. The exhibition includes images from the U.S. civil rights movement, the independence movements of Africa and African American life in segregated Atlanta. Davis’ daughter, Dorothy Davis, will speak about his life and work at 4:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17, in Ladd Library.

The college also co-sponsors an annual MLK Day Read-In where faculty, staff, students and members of the community will share a picture book with Martel School students in grades 4-6 at 1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 20, and Friday, Jan. 21. Those interested in volunteering should e-mail Brooke Miller at this bmiller@bates.edu or call 207-786-8273.

The King Day observance begins on the eve of the holiday, at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 16, with a memorial service of worship, including a sermon and music,  in the College Chapel, College Street.

Student debaters from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Morehouse and Spelman colleges kick off King Day itself when they argue the topic, “College Employees Should Unionize.” The debaters will be introduced at 9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 17,  in Chase Hall Lounge, Campus Avenue.

The debate will begin at 9:30 a.m. The match has historic resonance for the schools, which share a continuing commitment to collaborative projects. Founded in 1881, Spelman is one of the nation’s most highly regarded colleges for women. The nation’s largest liberal arts college for men, Morehouse was Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater. One of its longtime presidents was ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ graduate and accomplished debater Benjamin Mays,  a lifelong adviser to the great civil rights leader and the assassinated King’s eulogizer in 1968.

The Rev. John Mendez delivers his 10:45 a.m. keynote address in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Chapel.

A native of New York City, Mendez has pastored the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem for the past 21 years. Noted for his contributions to civil and human rights, Mendez has served as a consultant on many fact-finding missions, including investigations of Hawaiian land rights; pollution on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico; U.S. war crimes in Nicaragua and El Salvador; peace initiatives in Angola; the Mount Graham Apache Sacred Site; and the land rights of the Black Hills Lakota.

Widely recognized for his activism and community service, Mendez has received the Wendell-Wake County NAACP Humanitarian Award, the President’s Award of the Winston-Salem NAACP and Honorary Keeper of the Constitution given by the North Carolina Secretary of State.

An experienced lecturer, Mendez is a founding member of Re-framing the Dialogue on Racism, an organization that recruits, trains and builds a community of 100 white clergy from different denominations across the country to create strategies, ministries and programs at the congregational level that address racism in the white community.

Mendez participated in a pilot project on the black church’s economic responsibility for a new urban agenda at the Harvard University Divinity School. Mendez is a graduate of Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C.; Southeastern Baptist Theological Center in Atlanta, Ga; and the New York-based Postgraduate Center of Mental Health in pastoral counseling, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

A series of concurrent Monday afternoon workshops hosted by various academic departments and student organizations begins at 1:15, 2:30 and 3:35 p.m. respectively in Pettengill Hall in classrooms throughout the building. The workshops, featuring speakers and discussion, will focus on labor justice. Topics range from the life of 19th-century African American ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumna Stella James Sims to the interaction between King-era social activism and labor, from Lewiston labor history to impacts of the Vietnam War on the U.S. working class. For more information about the workshops, call 207-786-6400 or see

The afternoon’s events culminate with Dorothy Davis’ 4:45 p.m. talk in Ladd Library about her father, Griffith Jerome Davis, and his life, work and close connection to Morehouse College president Benjamin Mays ’20. A pathfinder in the field of international public affairs and special events, Ms. Davis has built international platforms for dialogue to promote respect for cultural differences. Her multicultural consulting firm, The Diasporan Touch, extends her commitment to build bridges between people, cultures and issues worldwide. The firm’s clients include the Executive Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations, the World Health Organization and The Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa. Davis also manages and curates “Photos by Griff Davis,” her father’s 55,000 photographic images.

The entire King Day observance concludes with a performance at 7:30 p.m. in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall featuring The Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble, the cultural arm of the civil rights and worker rights organization Black Workers for Justice. The six-member group performs songs from the history of people’s movements for social change, using African American music styles of rhythm & blues, gospel, reggae, jazz, folk, work songs and chants. The ensemble’s interactive performance includes a video presentation and invites audience participation.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Ryan Heffernan of Napa, Calif., exhibits Portraits of the Harvest 2004, a series of black and white photographs of workers harvesting grapes in Mendoza, Argentina, and in his hometown, in Chase Hall Gallery, Campus Avenue, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. The public is invited to attend the exhibition, on display through Oct. 18, at no charge. A two-hour reception with the photographer will be held in the exhibtion space at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9.

Heffernan grew up in the small town of St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley. Each fall, he remembers, the valley would be transformed as the wine industry geared up for the grape harvest. Thousands of predominantly Mexican migrant laborers would arrive to fill the immense labor demand created by the harvest.

“I was always fascinated by the lives of these workers and how their hard labor contrasted with the sophisticated and delicate world of wine,” Heffernan says.For his junior year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Heffernan decided to explore the world of the grape harvest, both in his backyard of Napa, and abroad in the wine region of Mendoza. “Within the context of a photographic essay, I sought a greater understanding of the lives of the harvesters who are truly the backbone of the wine industry,” the art major says.