High schoolers showcase Black History Month portraits

North Fork high school students will showcase large-scale mosaic portraits of civil rights leaders Friday as part of East End Arts’ MLK Portrait Project.

The sixth annual event kicks off with an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. at Floyd Memorial Library, 539 First St., in Greenport. The exhibition will be on display through March 29. 

“The students come, the teachers come, the parents and supporters of the students love to come together,” said executive director Wendy Weiss. “All these different school districts come together to celebrate each other, and that’s really special to see.”

Each participating high school independently created four-foot-by-four-foot mosaic portraits of civil rights leaders for this year’s project. Each piece consists of 16 individual panels created by students.

High schools taking part this year include Mattituck, Riverhead, East Hampton and Center Moriches. For the first time, Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence in Brooklyn is participating as well.

​​In the project’s first year, in 2020, schools created their own takes on Martin Luther King Jr., but subjects now include a range of other important Black Americans — both world-famous and lesser-known. 

This year, Mattituck High School completed a portrait of Louis Armstrong, and Riverhead honored Katherine Dunham, a renowned dancer, choreographer and anthropologist. East Hampton created a portrait of Keith Jones, and Center Moriches depicted Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright behind “A Raisin in the Sun.”

“It was a wonderful, organic evolution of the project,” Ms. Weiss said. “Teachers talked about how they started to integrate some history into their art classes. So, the idea just pivoted to become something that was more about the Civil Rights leadership in a bigger capacity.”

Past portraits include Aretha Franklin, Coretta Scott King and Ali Forney, an LGBTQ+ youth activist who was murdered in 1997 at the age of 22 and inspired a foundation for queer youth. 

In the past, the students’ work would be available for purchase, with proceeds going toward East End Arts’ scholarship funding. Ms. Weiss said they will not be doing that this year, as a number of the schools want to hang the work in their hallways.

East End Arts will accept donations at the reception, and attendees can purchase artwork to donate back to the schools.

“It’s always a really nice community gathering,” said Ms. Weiss, “which is also kind of part of the project, because the event becomes a mosaic in itself, where there are different school districts that come together to celebrate each other.”