[Mel King, the longtime political activist and former state
representative from the South End who in 1983 became the first Black
person to reach a Boston mayoral general election, died Tuesday
morning in his South End home. He was 94. ]
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MEL KING, WHOSE 1983 MAYORAL CAMPAIGN USHERED IN A NEW ERA IN BOSTON
RACE RELATIONS, DIES AT 94  
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Mark Feeney
March 28, 2023
The Boston Globe
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_ Mel King, the longtime political activist and former state
representative from the South End who in 1983 became the first Black
person to reach a Boston mayoral general election, died Tuesday
morning in his South End home. He was 94. _

Mr. King, marching in the Columbus Day parade as part of his campaign
for mayor of Boston., Joe Dennehy/Globe Staff

 

Mel King, the longtime political activist and former state
representative from the South End who in 1983 became the first Black
person to reach a Boston mayoral general election, died Tuesday
morning in his South End home. He was 94.

His wife, Joyce, said Mr. King, who had fallen about a year and a half
ago, had been ill in recent months and was briefly hospitalized at
Boston Medical Center before saying he wanted to return home three
days ago.

“We knew that it was close,” she said, adding that at the end
“it was quiet and peaceful.”

In a statement Tuesday night, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said that
“for decades, Mel King taught us all how to serve, how to build, and
how to love. His impact and legacy stretch across the boundaries of
neighborhood, race, class, and status. His transformative ideas have
shaped generations of organizers and leaders who are driving us closer
toward his vision today.”

Mr. King lost by 30 points to Raymond L. Flynn in 1983, 65 percent to
35 percent. Yet his campaign had a larger significance than his vote
total might indicate. It helped close a dark chapter in Boston history
while opening a notable new one in national politics.

Mr. King’s place as a mayoral finalist and the consistently positive
tone of the campaign indicated that the racial strife occasioned by
court-ordered desegregation of the public schools in the mid-’70s
had subsided. The civility of the election was especially striking in
that Flynn had been a leading opponent of desegregation.

“The city was racially divided, but the campaign wasn’t
divisive,” Flynn later said. “That campaign, with its aggressive
discussion of the issues, showed we could disagree without being
disagreeable. It was the first sign of wounds beginning to heal.
Campaigns can divide, but they can also unite.”

Mr. King campaigned as head of the Rainbow Coalition, seeking to
enlist all racial groups under a general banner of progressive
politics. Mr. King bequeathed the name to the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson,
for his National Rainbow Coalition, the centerpiece of Jackson’s
presidential bids in 1984 and 1988.

“What I believe people want more than anything else,” Mr. King
said in a 1993 Globe interview, “is a sense of a vision that’s
inclusive and respectful and appreciative of who they are. What the
Rainbow Coalition did was to put that right up front because everybody
could be a member.”

[After his run for mayor, Mr. King taught at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, among other places.]
After his run for mayor, Mr. King taught at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, among other places.Yunghi Kim/Globe Staff

State Representative Christopher Worrell, a Democrat representing the
5th Suffolk District, tweeted Tuesday night
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Mr. King “did the work that few would have tried to do. He
confronted so many of the problems we are still facing at a time with
far less support and understanding. He was a hero for Black Boston and
his work will always be remembered.”

And Ruthzee Louijeune [[link removed]],
city councilor at-large, tweeted that
[[link removed]] Mr. King’s
“legacy endures in every corner of this city. I was so lucky to
learn from him & his vision.”

Mr. King cut a memorable figure. He had an impressively severe glower,
its intimidating effect not altogether dispelled by the warmth of an
equally impressive smile.

Standing 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. King carried himself like a
champion athlete. In fact, he starred in three sports at Boston
Technical High School, went to college on a football scholarship, and
was a devoted tennis player well into his 80s.

Further contributing to Mr. King’s distinctive look were his shaven
head, full beard, and idiosyncratic style of dress. In 1973, a South
Shore Democrat expressed his dismay over Mr. King’s penchant for
wearing dashikis and jumpsuits with a point of order on the House
floor, questioning whether such attire was “according to custom and
tradition.” House Speaker Thomas W. McGee declined to make a ruling,
noting the absence of a dress code for members. Going to the other
extreme, Mr. King later developed a penchant for wearing bow ties.

Mr. King’s appearance made his style as a political activist seem
all the more confrontational. Asked in a 1988 Globe interview if he
had mellowed, Mr. King replied with laughter. “The name is Mel, you
know. I don’t mind being called a radical . . . but it doesn’t
mean I’m not mellow. I’m a mild-mannered person, but I have the
capacity for outrage when the circumstances demand it.”

Leading 4,000 demonstrators in 1968 to protest the lack of low-income
housing in the city, Mr. King was arrested (though charges were later
dropped, something he always claimed to regret). Eventually, the Tent
City mixed-income housing development was built on the site of the
demonstration, across from Back Bay Station. Forty-five years later,
on the verge of his 85th birthday, Mr. King was arrested along with
other activists for barring the entrance to Boston’s Municipal Court
building to protest homeowner evictions.

In 1969, Mr. King led a controversial — and much-publicized —
protest at the annual dinner of the United Fund (precursor of the
United Way) to criticize what he saw as inequitable distribution of
donations to the minority community. He and two dozen other protesters
gathered up leftovers at the banquet and dumped them on the head
table.

Often accused of radicalism, Mr. King acted locally but also thought
globally. He said during the ’83 mayoral campaign that he would
welcome a visit to Boston by Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine
Liberation Organization. He also said that, given a choice between
Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan, he preferred Castro (because he’d
done more for the poor). Mr. King used the occasion of Pope John Paul
II’s 1979 visit to Boston as an opportunity to protest the city’s
racial climate.

“I’m 75 years of age,” Mr. King said in a 2004 Boston Phoenix
interview, “and I’ve been an activist for 75 years.”

Melvin King was born on Oct. 20, 1928, in Boston, one of 11 siblings.
His father, Watts Richard King, was a longshoreman who’d emigrated
from Barbados. His mother, Ursula (Earle) King, was an immigrant from
Guyana.

Mr. King earned a bachelor’s degree from Claflin College, in South
Carolina, in 1951. That same year he married Joyce Kenion. Mr.
King’s undergraduate years were the only time he lived outside the
South End. Returning home, he earned a master’s degree in teaching
from Boston Teachers College (which later became Boston State College
and then merged with the University of Massachusetts Boston). He also
did postgraduate work at Boston and Northeastern universities.

Mr. King taught at Boston Trade and Boston Technical high schools for
a year, then became a social worker at the South End Settlement House.
He later ran an alternative “freedom school” there.

Mr. King’s work with young people attracted the attention of a
reform group, Citizens for Boston Public Schools, which drafted him
for its slate of candidates for the School Committee in 1961. It was
the first of three unsuccessful School Committee campaigns for Mr.
King. He also ran in 1963 and 1965.

In 1967, Mr. King became executive director of the Urban League of
Greater Boston, a position he held until 1971. That year, he founded
the Community Fellows Program at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, where he became an adjunct professor of urban studies and
planning. The program brings leaders from minority communities to MIT
for a year of research and study.

Elected to the Legislature in 1972, Mr. King spent five terms in the
State House. He soon earned a reputation as a gadfly on Beacon Hill.
Nevertheless, he sponsored several measures that won passage. Mr. King
proposed the legislation that began community garden programs in
Massachusetts, for example, and that made Martin Luther King Jr.’s
birthday a state holiday.

Although Mr. King had finished a surprising third running for mayor in
1979, few gave his candidacy much chance in 1983. He finished a very
close second to Flynn in the primary election, taking 28.6 percent of
the vote.

Both Mr. King and Flynn had run as populist outsiders, casting
themselves as advocates of the city’s neighborhoods against the
downtown business interests that had flourished under the four-term
incumbent, Kevin H. White. The desire for change went only so far,
however, and Flynn won in a landslide. Even so, Mr. King said on
election night, his campaign had been a watershed event, “what
historians will recognize as a turning point in the social, cultural,
and political history of Boston.”

In 1986, Mr. King ran for the seat of retiring US House Speaker Thomas
P. O’Neill Jr. Joseph P. Kennedy II won the race, with Mr. King
finishing a distant third. That was his last run for office, though he
briefly contemplated another mayoral bid, in 1993.

Mr. King remained active in politics, launching the Rainbow Coalition
Party in 1997. Calling Democratic welfare and immigration policies
“unconscionable,” Mr. King said, “I cannot be identified with
parties that have those kinds of policies, and which really don’t
care about workers.” In 2002, the Rainbow Coalition Party merged
with the Massachusetts Green Party to form the Green-Rainbow Party.

Mr. King was the author of “Chain of Change: Struggles for Black
Community Development” (1981) and editor of “From Access to Power:
Black Politics in Boston” (1986). He was also an enthusiastic
amateur poet.

After retiring from MIT, Mr. King served as director of the South End
Technology Center@Tent City, which provides computer-based information
technology to low-income people.

“On behalf of the City of Boston, we send our deepest condolences to
the King family and the many, many loved ones, mentees, and friends of
Mel,” Wu said in her statement. “With gratitude and determination
to keep fighting, Rest in Power.”

Funeral arrangements are pending for Mr. King. A complete list of
survivors, in addition to his wife, Joyce, was not immediately
available.

 

 

In 2021, the intersection of Yarmouth Street and Columbus Avenue, in
the South End, was named Melvin H. “Mel” King Square in his honor.

[“I want to make sure the city is working for everybody,” Mr. King
said. ]
“I want to make sure the city is working for everybody,” Mr. King
said. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

“I want to make sure the city is working for everybody,” Mr. King
said in a 2004 Globe interview. “We just need to hold hands and
understand that love is the question _and_ the answer.”

_Tonya Alanez of the Globe staff contributed to this report._

Mark Feeney can be reached at [email protected].

* Mel King; Boston politics; Boston Housing;
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