A Lion In Winter

The Incredible life of Mel King

Mel King passed away last Tuesday afternoon in his sleep at his home on Yarmouth St.

He was 94 years old.

I have lived in the South End for over 25 years and over the years had become used to what I referred to as "Mel King sightings" in the neighborhood.

It's important for me to let you know that Mel King was a hero of mine. I am a proud social worker who has spent a great deal of my career prior coming to academia in community organizing and social action throughout Boston. Mel King's work as a community organizer was legendary.

Currently in my role as the Asst. Dean for Community Engagement and Social Justice and Professor at Simmons University School of Social Work in my yearly course on macro social policy consistently one of my student's favorite lectures is on Mel King and his community organizing legacy. I share with my students how Mel and Joyce opened their home on Sundays for decades for people from across the city to break bread together and to build community.

Gov. Maura Healey following Mel's death told the Dorchester News that she first met Mel King when she was a first-time candidate running for attorney general and he invited her to one of his renowned Sunday Brunches.

Mel King was a proud Black man who was invested in the well being of his community and was not afraid to speak truth to power.

Former Mayor Kim Janey said of Mel King when he received an honorary degree from Simmons University in 2022 that I had nominated him for said : "He [Mel King] is a Boston treasure," who teaches us to "look at ourselves with the strength of who we are. Don't let others define what is possible for us."

I have such fond memories of walking along Columbus Avenue in the warmer weather and running into Mel sitting on the bench in front of the tech center that he developed , in his ubiquitous uniform of overalls and wearing a hat to protect his bald head from the sun. I always smiled and thought that Mel reminded me of an old majestic lion (a la the Lion King) who had seen and experienced much and was wiser for those experiences but whose social justice roar was still there, but who also enjoyed having the time to feel the warmth of the sun on his face .

Mel Herbert King, Sr was a proud lifelong South End resident.

His 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. Mel was born in 1928 in the South End. He 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, he left the classroom to work with at-risk youth, first becoming the Director of Boy's Work at Lincoln House, a settlement house in the South End. He continued his community work focusing with at-risk youth 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 fired by USES leadership when he promoted and supported neighborhood control versus USES and government control over the urban renewal and federal funds to assist poor people. He was then rehired after huge protests from the community over his firing and was given the job as a community organizer. He 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, Mel 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 he was already a veteran in fight to stop the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) policy of demolition without relocation, he helped organize a sit-in at the BRA office. Mel and other South End community activists learned that a parking garage was going to be built at the corner of Dartmouth Street and Columbus Avenue, on a site where housing had only recently been leveled to create a parking lot, they decided it was time for an intervention to bring greater attention to the issue of gentrification and community dislocation. On a rainy Friday, Mel and a small group of activists arrived early in the morning at the parking lot and Mel proclaimed that the space as "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.

Mel 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 Mass legislature until 1982.

In 2003, he 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 Mayor Kevin White's withdrawal from contention after 16 years in office made the race wide open, Mel King went from what some in power described as an 'obscure radical" to serious contender for Mayor of Boston.

Despite Boston's historical scars of racism, Mel's grassroots activism culminated in political momentum that nearly defeated the favorite, Raymond Flynn. Flynn, an Irish-Catholic with roots in "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.

In 1970, King created the Community Fellows Program (CFP) in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He served as an Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and director of the Community Fellows Program for twenty-five years until 1996. CFP, a nine-month long program brought community organizers and leaders from across America to reflect, research and study urban community politics, economics, social life, education, housing and media.

Upon his retirement from MIT , he founded the South End Technology Center, a joint venture between MIT and the Tent City Corporation to improve community and youth access to technology. He retired as the director of that organization in 2019. Over the course of his career, King has been dedicated to engaging youth in STEM, providing access to professional education to citizens in underrepresented communities and citizens returning from incarceration, and recording music with student mentors at Berklee College of Music.

He has authored three books: Chain of Change, Struggles for Black Community Development, which is used in many college curricula, Streets, a poem book about the streets he and others lived, worked, and played on, and Love is the Question & the Answer, a compilation of all the poems he has written

Mel was a community leader, a political activist, an author, a songwriter, a youth advocate, and a retired educator who had been an icon in the City of Boston for more than 60 years.

Mel is survived by his wife Joyce Kenion King and their six children: Melvin Jr., Pamela, Judith, Michael, Nancy, and Jomo.

When I heard of Mel's passing on Tuesday this song immediately came to mind :

"If I can help somebody, as I travel along
If I can help somebody, with a word or song
If I can help somebody, from doing wrong
No, my living shall not be in vain
No, my living shall not be in vain
No, my living shall not be in vain
If I can help somebody, as I'm singing the song
You know, my living shall not be in vain"

Yes, indeed you helped so many people as you passed along this way Mel King, now is your time to enjoy sitting in the sun .

There will be a  two-part celebration of Mel King's life .

A public viewing will be on Monday, April 10th (4-8pm); and the funeral on Tuesday, April 11th at 12n — both at Union United Methodist Church in the South End.

Rest in Peace, Mel. Rest in Peace!

If I Can Help Somebody Alma B. Androzzo, lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Mel King received a standing ovation while accepting an award for a lifetime of work on behalf of the Boston community at the 34th annual Action for Boston Community Development Community Award Dinner. Photo: Keiko Hiromi.

Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Women's Fund executive director Josefina Vazquez, presented Mel King (left) with the Social Justice in Action Award at BWF's 'Men Take A Stand' event. "He has been a model for many communities," Vazquez said of King. Photo: Kate Vander Wiede.

(Left) Singer Danielle Ruffen serenades King. (Top Right) Danielle Ruffen. (Right Center) King blows out the birthday candles. (Bottom Right) Mayor Walsh, Pamela King, Kim Janey. Photos by Michele Maniscalco

USES celebrated the legacy of Joyce and Mel King on Tuesday night, June 2 by awarding the couple the inaugural Harriet Tubman Award for Community Building. Photo: Marlene Karas.

(Left to Right) Roger Herzog, Mel King, and Carl Sussman. Photo courtesy of David Fox.