Curated by Craig Saddlemire ’05 and commisssioned by the Bates College Martin Luther King Jr. Day Committee

This MLK Day Jr. Day exhibit is open from noon through 5:30 p.m. in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall.

The making of video is the making of social identity – personal as well as collective. This video exhibit features work that tells a story about Maine people and/or was produced by Maine videomakers. In both cases, each video is made from one independent point-of-view, and serves to dialogue with the other videos about our individual and collective identities. They explore how identities are strengthened, segregated, imposed, exposed, or self-actualized.  They also reveal how identity shapes relationships of power and equity. Through participating in free and independent media production, each video artist is helping to diversify and complicate the conventional identities that saturate “popular culture.”

Ubuntu: Humanity (Scott Hamann, 1 minute) Looks at the challenge of the first world’s indifference to third world poverty as articulated by Kayamandi, South African resident Peter Mayekiso.

Ubuntu: Kayamandi (Scott Hamann, 20 minutes) Shows first-hand the poverty cycle in post-Apartheid South Africa. Townships (or shantytowns) are the remnants of the Apartheid era, imprisoning black South Africans in a culture of Poverty.

Gay Marriage and Petitioning (Craig Saddlemire, 11 minutes) Craig Saddlemire talks with a petitioner who is collecting signatures to repeal the equal marriage law passed by the Maine State Legislature.

Walk Across Maine Drag-a-thon (Tim Berry, 15 minutes) An artistic investigation into Maine culture and how it relates to something typically outside of itself (like a drag queen), trying to do something good within/for it.

A Dark Life (Scott Hamann, 10 minutes) Depicts the struggles of a runaway teen in post-Apartheid South Africa.

In the Aftermath of Marriage: Equality in Maine (Ryan Conrad, 22 minutes) Seven queer and trans activists offer their often-unheard perspectives critiquing both the campaign and institution of marriage.

George Coleman Interview and Gordon Parks Lecture (Patrick Bonsant, 16 minutes) George Coleman talks about the Portland-based anti-poverty organization P.O.W.E.R. and class oppression.  Followed by footage of Gordon Parks (activist, journalist, filmmaker) speaking at the Portland Museum of Art.

Birth at Home (Nicolle Littrel, 6 minu) Documents one couple’s homebirth and explores women’s rights and the stigma surrounding birth.

MVAN 40th Episode Music Video “This Little Light of Mine” (Craig Saddlemire, 5 minutes) A video montage of 4 years of documenting the Social Justice movement in Maine.

No On One – The Campaign to Protect Marriage Equality in Maine (Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll, 14 minutes) A portrait of the final days of the 2009 “No On One” campaign in Maine.

Thrive Digital Storytelling ­(Thrive Youth Committee, 12 minutes) Young people from Androscoggin County share their stories of overcoming homelessness, drug abuse, and mental health problems.

Seven Jewish Children (Pete Sirois, 9 minutes) People in Waterville do a street performance of a play by Caryl Churchill about how different parents describe atrocities (such as apartheid and genocide) to their children, starting in Nazi Germany and ending in Gaza.

Rooted in Community 2009 (Craig Saddlemire, 10 minutes) Youth from across the United States gather in Lewiston to develop leadership skills, share culture, and work to strengthen the food justice movement.

Sunday, Jan. 17
7 p.m.

Worship service: A sermon by Barbara D. Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, highlights the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Memorial Service of Worship. The service includes music by Bates students. Sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy.
Bates College Chapel

8:30 p.m.
Reception: Meet Professor Savage (see preceding item)
Multicultural Center

Monday, Jan. 18                         Martin Luther King Jr. Day

In observance of King Jr. Day, classes are canceled and special programming takes place throughout the day. (Please see Sunday, Jan. 17, for related events.) This year’s theme at Bates is Faith and Ethics in the Public Sphere: What Is the Dream? For more information, call 207-786-6400.

9 a.m.
Reception: Meet the students from Morehouse and Bates colleges and local high schools who will participate in the morning’s debate.
Benjamin Mays Center

9:30 a.m.
Oratorical event: Members of the Morehouse and Bates debate teams and local high school orators will debate the resolution, “This house believes that religion is a necessary element of a just social change.”
Benjamin Mays Center

10:45 a.m.
Keynote address: Barbara D. Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Harvard University Press, 2008), gives the keynote speech for Bates’ Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances. Her talk is titled Benjamin Mays and the Politics of Black Religion in the Age of Desegregation.
Olin Arts Center

Noon until 5:30 p.m.
Video exhibition: curated by filmmaker Craig Saddlemire ’05. The making of video is the making of social identity – personal as well as collective. This video exhibit features work that tells a story about Maine people and/or was produced by Maine videomakers. In both cases, each video is made from one independent point-of-view, and serves to dialogue with the other videos about our individual and collective identities. They explore how identities are strengthened, segregated, imposed, exposed, or self-actualized.  They also reveal how identity shapes relationships of power and equity. Through participating in free and independent media production, each video artist is helping to diversify and complicate the conventional identities that saturate “popular culture.”
Perry Atrium

Art project: What’s on Your Green Conscience?
Presented by 2010 Eco Rep Team and Julie Rosenbach, sustainability coordinator. We all have behaviors that we know are not environmentally sustainable from long showers to driving and buying to eat habits. This art project is a chance to see what’s on others’ green consciences and express your own. Stop in to create an artwork (all supplies will be provided). Add it to the collective and leave it behind.
Perry Atrium and Pettengill 116

1 p.m. and throughout the afternoon
Workshops: In four concurrent sessions (times and rooms TBA), students, staff, guests and faculty lead readings, presentations and discussions on topics connected to the King Day theme. The afternoon includes a video exhibition in the Perry Atrium curated by filmmaker Craig Saddlemire ’05. For a complete schedule, call 207-786-6400.
Pettengill Hall

7:30 p.m.
Performance: Bates students, commissioned to create cultural work for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, present music, dance and spoken word pieces. Performers include Bates College Step Team; the Robinson Players, a campus theater group; the Bates Gospelaires, a gospel choir; Justified; Hans Johnson and the Hybrid Sun; Lindsey Reuter; and Clyde Bango.
Olin Arts Concert Hall

Friday, Jan. 22 at 1:15 p.m. for one hour
Annual MLK Read-In: Faculty, staff and students will share a picture book with Martel School students in grades 4-6. Those interested in volunteering should e-mail contact Krystina Zaykowski (kzaykows@bates.edu). Transportation will be provided by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

Auburn mayor John Jenkins  ’74 was the subject of a story by longtime Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, who wrote, “Forty years ago last spring, John Jenkins stood on the stage at his high school in Newark, N.J., and proudly shook the hand of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. One week after that, King was dead, felled by an assassin’s bullet. And Newark, like so many other American cities, was ablaze with anger. Now here Jenkins stood on the National Mall…on the morning of Martin Luther King Day. In a day’s time, hundreds of thousands of Americans were going to pack this frozen space to witness the inauguration of…the country’s first black president.” Jenkins, who is black, told Nemitz that Obama connects with mainstream white America because he speaks about everyday problems using everyday language. The effect is “transformational,” Jenkins said. “It really changes people’s hearts. It’s not that you change them. They change themselves.”

Read Bill Nemitz’s article here.

Ben Smeltzer ’10, of the Bates Jazz Combo, rocks the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall as part of the evening program for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The combo’s members participate in the college’s jazz band.

Visit the Bates Jazz Band Website.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell was hoping to illustrate her Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address at Bates with some projected images. But balky technology was making that impossible, the scholar explained to her audience in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

So instead of showing the images, she would describe them. “After all, every important African American art form — jazz, rap, hip hop — is based on improvisation,” she quipped.

See a slide show about the 2009 MLK Day observance.

Watch a short video of Melissa Harris-Lacewell previewing her talks.

Harris-Lacewell began her talk by recalling the Democratic convention in Denver, where she saw street vendors selling every kind of item with Obama’s likeness. She described one item showing Obama’s face on Malcolm X’s body. With her audience in an imaginative mindset, she asked everyone to imagine the famous photograph of President Lyndon Johnson meeting with King in the White House in December 1963 (below). Then, she asked her audience to imagine Obama’s face in that scene. Where does he belong in the photo? she asked.

The witty comment set the tone as Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of political science and African American studies at Princeton, helped her audience imagine new identities for Barack Obama — on the eve of his inauguration — and for Martin Luther King Jr.

After a short pause, Harris-Lacewell asked her audience if anyone had placed Obama’s face on King rather than on the president of the United States. Nervous laughter indicated that some had seen Obama playing King’s role. Perfectly understandable, she said: “It’s hard to put black figures into new spaces,” such as the presidency.

With her audience collectively seeing Obama as president, she asked the morning’s key question: Now that Obama is president, who in our society is going to play the role of Martin Luther King? Answering her own question, she said, “All of us are Kings, because presidents need Kings.”

In being Kings to President Obama, said Harris-Lacewell, we must recognize Obama’s experience as a community organizer and his upbringing by grandparents of the Greatest Generation.

That cohort saw their relationship with government as reciprocal: the people would work for the good of society if the government promised to invest in the good of the people. “The Greatest Generation said, ‘We will sacrifice, but you will invest in us,’” she told the audience. It’s a covenant that Obama brings to the presidency, she said.

And by acting as Kings to President Obama, citizens can play the role of community organizers, helping government see that society’s problems are not always nails to be banged with hammers. “A community organizer can get in close enough to a problem to see that it’s really a screw that needs a screwdriver, not a hammer.”

By serving as Kings to Obama, citizens will help “make him accountable for upholding the full promise of the American dream.”

Martin Luther King Jr. also needed his own Kings, she said, people like behind-the-scenes activist Ella Baker. Or like Fannie Lou Hamer, who taught King that economic justice isn’t merely an urban issue but a worldwide poverty problem. Or like Bayard Rustin, who convinced King in the 1950s that he must embrace nonviolence fully, telling him, in Harris-Lacewell’s words, “you can’t ask the people to be nonviolent if you’ve got an armed guard at home.” And James Bevel, who urged King to oppose the Vietnam War more forcefully.

Not that it will be easy for citizens to serve as Obama’s Kings, she said. Citizens must be able to confront great problems even while understanding that failure is likely in their lifetimes. Nevertheless, society’s problems — of the sort exposed by Hurricane Katrina, around health care, housing, education, jobs, criminal justice, and civil rights — must still be tackled with great faith.

“If you cannot commit to a cause that will fail in your lifetime,” Harris-Lacewell said, “you will not create the tools we need to succeed.”

The 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance at Bates College focused on “Inaugurating Change: Where Do We Go From Here?” Each year, Bates observes King’s birthday by suspending regular classes and focusing community attention on special programming throughout the day.

View a slide show of the 2009 Martin Luther King Day at Bates.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton, is the keynote speaker for the 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances at Bates College. Classes at the college are canceled and special programming is scheduled throughout the day with an emphasis on the theme “Inaugurating Change: Where Do We Go From Here?”

Scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Monday, Jan. 19, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St., Harris-Lacewell’s address is part of a celebration of King’s life and work that includes performances, video installations, workshops and orations. Harris-Lacewell also will give the annual Memorial Service of Worship sermon on the eve of the holiday at 7 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 18 in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. All events are open to the public free of charge. For more information, or to see a complete list of events, call 207-786-6400.

Chaired by Charles Nero, associate professor of rhetoric, African American and American cultural studies, the Bates committee that organizes the annual observance of King’s birthday chose “Inaugurating Change” as its theme.

Nero explains: “We faced an historical election process this year. Never before had an African American and a white woman been the Democratic Party front-runners for president. Never before had a white woman been the nominee for vice-president from the Republican Party.

• Read more about Martin Luther King Jr Day at Bates.

“Elections are a way to think about Dr. King’s legacy in light of our aspirations for the future. Were these nominations a reflection of what the civil rights movement imagined for the nation? How will Barack Obama carry forth the legacy of the civil rights movement? These are some of the questions we will address this year at our observation of MLK Day.”

Harris-Lacewell, delivers the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Memorial Service of Worship sermon, titled “Time to Believe: Lessons from Edwina,” at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 18, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. The service includes musical performances by Bates students including vocalist Megan Guynes, a sophomore from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., as well as a “sound collage” of political rhetoric developed by Assistant Professor of Music Dale Chapman. Following the service, the Multifaith Chaplaincy hosts an 8:30 p.m. reception and conversation with Harris-Lacewell in the Olin lobby.

A Princeton University professor of politics and African American studies, Harris-Lacewell’s academic research is inspired by a desire to investigate the challenges facing contemporary African Americans and to better understand the multiple, creative ways African Americans respond to these challenges.

She is the author of Barbershops, Bibles and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2004) and is currently at work on her next book, For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Politics When Being Strong Wasn’t Enough. Her writings have been published in nationwide newspapers, and she is a regular contributor on National Public Radio and TheRoot.com. Harris-Lacewell appeared twice on Bill Moyers’ PBS broadcast “Journal” and has provided frequent analysis of the election of Barack Obama for national network and print news outlets. She keeps a political weblog at http://princetonprofs.blogspot.com/.

Harris-Lacewell received her B.A. in English from Wake Forest University and her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University. She received an honorary doctorate from Meadville Lombard Theological School, and is currently a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Student debaters from Bates and Morehouse colleges and local high schools kick off King Day itself with an annual oratorical event, “Minutes and Words of Eternity: The Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays Speech Invitational.”

The debaters will be introduced at 9 a.m. in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St. The debaters will discuss the topic, “The United States should reform its system of prison and incarceration” at 9:30 a.m. The event has historic resonance for the schools, which share a continuing commitment to collaborative projects. The nation’s largest liberal arts college for men, Morehouse was Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater. One of its longtime presidents was 1920 Bates graduate and accomplished debater Benjamin Mays, a lifelong adviser to the great civil rights leader. Mays eulogized King in 1968.

Mays, who served for 27 years as president of Morehouse and was the first African-American chairman of the Atlanta School Board, inspired generations of civil rights leaders with both his words and actions. King called Mays “my spiritual mentor and my intellectual father.”

Harris-Lacewell delivers her 10:45 a.m. keynote address, “The Relevance of King in the Age of Obama,” in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. The Bates Jazz Band offers a musical prelude to the keynote address at 10:30 a.m..

This year video artist Craig Saddlemire, Bates Class of 2005, curates a video installation, “Social Justice: Critique, Action, Change,” as part of the Bates MLK Day celebration. Scheduled for Monday, Jan. 19 from noon through 5:30 p.m., in the Perry Atrium of Pettengill Hall, the installation encourages reflection on the legacy of King, the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for social justice. Organized by theme, the videos will be shown throughout the afternoon on three large viewing screens in the Atrium.

Concurrent Monday afternoon workshops hosted by various academic departments and student organizations begin at 1:20, 2:35 and 4 p.m. in classrooms throughout Pettengill Hall and the Marcy Plavin Dance Studios. The workshops, featuring speakers, films and discussion, will focus on various topics tied to “Inaugurating Change,” the day’s theme. Topics range from spiritual resources for social activism to the use of music in the Obama campaign, from eating well for people with low incomes to a discussion of Obama’s inauguration as a sign of hope for Africa. For more information about the workshops, call 207-786-6400.

The entire King Day observance concludes with a performance in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m. Bates students commissioned to create cultural work for the occasion present music, theater, dance and spoken-word performances. The evening features seniors Shawki White of Danville, Ill., and Sulo Dissanayake of Pita Kotte, Sri Lanka, and Ben Smeltzer ’10 along with the performance of an improvisatory piece created during the day in a workshop run by the Philadelphia-based Headlong Performance Institute, a group of artists and master teachers who train students to create, improvise and perform.

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 1:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 22. Those interested in volunteering should e-mail Anne Fischer at afischer@bates.edu or call 908-642-2620. (The snow date for this event is Friday, Jan. 23.)

• Click the thumbnails to view the slide show above

The Bates College community observes the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. by canceling classes and scheduling special programming throughout the day. For 2006, the Martin Luther King Day Committee placed an emphasis on the theme “The Noble Road to Peace: Storming the Battlements of Injustice.” Read more about this year’s events.

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 Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates, Morehouse and Spelman college participants. All events are open to the public free of charge. For more information, call 207-786-6400 or see a complete list of scheduled events for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

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 Bates. Chaired by McClendon, the Bates 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 Bates 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 The Photography of Griffith Jerome Davis 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, Bates 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 Bates, 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 Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates 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 a complete listing.

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.