Mel King

His parents met and married in Nova Scotia and immigrated to Boston in the early 1920s.

Born in the South End neighborhood, King was one of eleven children, only nine of whom survived past infancy.

Melvin Herbert King (October 20, 1928 – March 28, 2023) was an American politician, community organizer, and educator.

He graduated from Boston Technical High School in 1946 and then from Claflin College in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics.

In 1951, he received a Master of Arts 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 students, becoming Director of Boy's Work at Lincoln House, a settlement house in the South End.

He continued doing community work, focusing on street-corner gangs as Youth Director at the United South End Settlements (USES).

King also worked as a community activist, as well as an urban renewal and anti-poverty organizer.

He was fired by USES when he promoted neighborhood control over government control, but was later rehired after community protests over his firing and was given the job of 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.

King ran three times for a seat on the Boston School Committee in 1961, 1963, and 1965 – being unsuccessful each time.

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, King helped organize a sit-in at the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) office on April 25 in protest of a planned parking garage that was going to be built at the corner of Dartmouth and Columbus Streets in the South End, a site where housing had been leveled.

The next morning, King organized an occupation of the lot.

For the next three days, while facing police retaliation, from 100 to 400 people occupied the lot.

They built tents and wooden shanties and put up a large sign welcoming the media and visitors to "Tent City."

Celtics legend Bill Russell, who owned a South End restaurant, provided food for the protestors.

The story received extensive coverage in the local media.

In 1973, King was elected as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives' 9th Suffolk district, a post he held until early 1983.

In 1973, King was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the 4th Suffolk district; he served until 1982.

He was redistricted to the 9th Suffolk district in 1978.

In 1979, King ran for Mayor for the first time.

He finished third in the preliminary election and was eliminated.

King was the runner-up in the 1983 Boston mayoral election, against Raymond Flynn.

King, a lifelong resident of South End neighborhood of Boston, was active in creating community programs and institutions for low-income people in the city, and was the founder of the South End Technology Center.

At the time of his death, he held the position of Senior Lecturer Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in their Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

King's mother, Ursula, was born in Guyana, and his father, Watts King, in Barbados.

In 1983, when the incumbent Mayor of Boston, Kevin White, withdrew from contention after 16 years in office, Mel King ran for mayor, the first African-American to run in a final election bid for mayor of Boston, and ultimately against Raymond Flynn.

Though King secured the African American vote by wide margins and significant support among other ethnic groups, King ultimately lost to Flynn, an Irish-Catholic with roots in South Boston.

Both King and Flynn had originally been viewed as underdogs in the primary election.

King's campaign relied heavily on volunteers, as did the campaign of Flynn.

King's campaign came in a year where Black candidates in other cities had enjoyed success.

This included the election of Harold Washington in Chicago.

King and Flynn had known each other since childhood, meeting through both playing basketball, and had both served as state representatives at the same time and worked together there on legislation.

They would ultimately have a lifelong friendship, despite having run against each other for mayor.

In honor of the demonstration, when a housing complex at that site was dedicated on April 30, 1988, it was named "Tent City."

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 founded the Rainbow Coalition Party in Massachusetts in 1997.

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.