Mel King, lifelong civil rights activist and leader in Boston, has died. The 94-year-old was hailed as 'ambassador-like' and a 'visionary' by generations of activists in the city and beyond.
Mel King, perhaps the most prominent activist and Black politician of Boston's 20th century, has died at age 94In a city that touts its history as a temporary home to two giants of the civil-rights movement, King was 100% home-grown.
King was a tireless organizer for decades — a natural leader, friends said — fighting against apartheid and multiple wars, and in favor of affordable housing, good paying jobs and more. Already in 1978, Ruth Batson, who started the METCO program, told WGBH she wasn’t aware of a promising city initiative that King hadn’t started or helped along — and always in a collaborative spirit.
King shared his whole life with Boston; he only ever left the South End at length for his four years at Claflin College, a historically Black institution in South Carolina. But at times, Boston took from him. In the late 1960s, King threw himself into a new and militant mode of struggle. He was prepared to defend the new stance, saying that Black America had learned hard lessons from American history — from the mass killing of Native Americans to the internment of the Japanese.Ever the optimist, King added that there was a better option on the table: the unconditional acceptance of African-Americans into a diverse and equal society — a revival of the lost world he'd loved as a child.
In his first term as governor, Dukakis worked — and sometimes warred — with King, whose agenda was broad and often surprising. He worked to expand community farming, protect community television, and to source clean and healthy food from across the state. Boston mayoral candidate Mel King listens to a question asked by opponent Ray Flynn in the Taylor Room at The Boston Globe in Boston on Oct. 27, 1983.
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