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| Affiliation | Green-Rainbow |
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| <- |
2002-01-01 |
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| Name | Melvin H. "Mel" King |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
October 20, 1928
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| Died | March 28, 2023
(94 years)
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| Contributor | Tsongas Democrat |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Mar 28, 2023 08:17pm |
| Tags |
Black - Guyanese - Married - Straight -
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| Info | Melvin H. King is an American educator, activist, and writer.
King has been active across the landscape of neighborhoods and politics of Boston, Massachusetts for over fifty-five years, while also being an educator, youth worker, social activist, community organizer and developer, elected politician, author, and an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is responsible for creating community programs and institutions for low-income people in Boston. He is the founder and current director of the South End Technology Center.
King and his wife, Joyce, married in 1951, are parents of six children, ranging in ages from 38 to 53.
King's mother, Ursula, was born in Guyana, and his father, Watts King, in Barbados. They met and married in Nova Scotia and immigrated to Boston in the early 1920s. King, born in 1928, in Boston's South End neighborhood, was one of eight children born to the Kings between 1918 and 1938. He graduated from Boston Technical High School in 1946 and from Claflin College in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1950 with a B.S. degree in mathematics. In 1951, he received his M.A. degree in education from Boston State College and then taught math, first at Boston Trade High School and at his alma mater, Boston Technical High School.
In 1953, King left the classroom to work with at risk youth, becoming Director of Boy's Work at Lincoln House, a settlement house in Boston's South End community. He continued his community work focusing on street corner gangs as Youth Director at United South End Settlements (USES). He also worked as a community activist and urban renewal and anti-poverty organizer. He was let go by USES when he promoted and supported neighborhood control versus USES and government control over the urban renewal and federal funds to assist poor people. King was then rehired after huge protests from the community over his firing and was given the job as a community organizer. King, then founded the Community Assembly for a United South End (C.A.U.S.E.), to give tenants and community residents a voice in their communities.
In 1967, King became the director of the New Urban League of Greater Boston. He brought job training for the unemployed and organized the community around public school, employment, and human services delivery issues.
In 1968 Mel King, already a veteran in the struggle to stop the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) policy of demolition without relocation, helped organize a sit-in at the BRA office on Thursday, April 25th. When Mel King and other community activists learned that a parking garage was going to be built at the corner of Dartmouth and Columbus Streets in the South End, a site where housing had only recently been leveled to create a parking lot, they decided it was time for an attention-grabbing protest. The next morning, a rainy Friday, Mel King and a group of activists arrived early at the parking lot. By 7 am, King told them, "This is a place for people."
Despite police retaliation, for the next 3 days between 100 and 400 people lived on the lot. They built tents and wooden shanties and put up a large sign welcoming the media and visitors to "Tent City." Thousands of people came. The music of guitars, bongo drums, and saxophones filled the South End. Some of the "residents" set up hibachis and grilled burgers. Others put up strings of lights. Celtic's legend Bill Russell, who owned a South End restaurant, provided food for the protestors. The event was peaceful and festive; the story received extensive coverage in the local media.
In honor of the demonstration, when the housing complex was dedicated on April 30, 1988, it was named "Tent City." Mel King told reporters that the key to the project was convincing ordinary Bostonians that they had to play a role in the development of their neighborhood.
King ran three times for a seat on the Boston School Committee in 1961, 1963 and 1965 – being unsuccessful each time. However, his citywide political organizing for these campaigns paid off. In 1973, he was elected as a State Representative for the 9th Suffolk District and served in the Massachusetts Legislature until 1982.
In 2003, King created The New Majority – an organization and program uniting Boston's communities of color – Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans – uniting them around candidates for elective office.
In 1983, when incumbent Kevin White's withdrawal from contention after 16 years in office made the race wide open, Mel King went from obscure radical to serious contender for Mayor of Boston. Despite Boston's historical scars of racism, Mel King's grassroots activism culiminated in political momentum that nearly defeated the favorite, Raymond Flynn. Aside from securing the African American vote, King would have needed 30% of the white vote, which was almost accomplished. Flynn, an Irish-Catholic with roots in the gritty "Southie"(South Boston) area, would take the election despite a landmark showing by King. Even with the defeat, the election and national attention was a historical turning point in the participation of African Americans in politics and urban policy.
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