Through 1983, Boston politicians ran their campaigns along the eastern shore and southern border of Boston because that’s where the voting power was. East Boston, Charlestown, South Boston, the white part of Dorchester, Hyde Park, West Roxbury.

Mel King changed the narrative that year when he became the first African American mayoral election finalist. Former School Committee member David Finnegan had led in the polls throughout the primary campaign against a field full of more traditional politicians; Sheriff Dennis Kearney, City Councillors Larry DiCara and Fred Langone, and former Deputy Mayor Bob Kiley along with then-state Rep. Mel King and Councillor Ray Flynn, who on election night

moved ahead of Finnegan and finished in a virtual tie. This was very much unexpected as Mel King was a progressive – some said “radical” – Black leader and Ray Flynn ran as a neighborhood populist.

That was the night when voters of color and progressive whites became important in Boston politics, too. No longer could citywide campaigns ignore them.

After the vote, a Boston Globe cartoon by Paul Szep presented the Vault, which was the organization of Boston big business leaders, as an older Brahmin lady who had fainted. Kneeling to help her was Mel King, wearing his signature bow tie, and Ray Flynn sporting an Irish scally cap. They are shouting, “Quick, someone bring the smelling salts” as the woman clenches her heart and grimaces at the election result.

King’s campaign deemed itself the Rainbow Coalition as it brought forward together people of all races. His campaign manager, Pat Walker, recounted how this name happened.

“We developed it one night when Bonnie Acker was making buttons and she started experimenting with different colors. They were handmade buttons back then. And she started using different color markers and all of a sudden the idea of a rainbow came up and then a day or two later we hired an airplane to tow a rainbow behind it when we had all the different neighborhoods marching to City Hall.”

For all that, Mel King’s contributions on progressive issues were many both before and after that 1983 campaign. In the 1960s he was a leader in the campaign by Black residents to get the Boston School Committee, then led by Louise Day Hicks, to desegregate the schools. The panel refused for 13 years and finally a court suit filed by 14 adults and 43 children – Tallulah Morgan v. James Hennigan – led to federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity’s decision that the Boston schools were unconstitutionally segregated. Busing followed.

Mel also was a leader in the campaign that in in the early 1970s stopped the eight-lane highway that was to go through what is now the Southwest Corridor into Boston.

Mel King was rightly seen as the father of community organizing in Boston. When urban renewal began in the South End, housing was torn down and a parking lot was planned in a space adjacent to Copley Square. King led a massive demonstration against this that became a three-day occupation of the land with people sleeping overnight in tents, an action that was called Tent City. The follow-through led to a massive 259-unit affordable housing complex instead of a parking lot meant to serve the well-off.

He might also be considered the father of affordable housing in Boston and for all of Massachusetts. He sponsored the law used by non-profit community development corporations (CDCs) to incorporate. He sponsored the law to create the Community Development Finance Corporation to finance such housing and cooperative economic development. He sponsored the law to create the Community Development Assistance Corporation (CDAC) that gives crucial technical assistance to non-profits seeking to build affordable housing and childcare centers.

He was a leader in the anti-apartheid movement challenging South Africa’s oppressive racist laws. When Nelson Mandela was freed from prison after 27 years and the apartheid system finally ended, he made a trip to the US to thank his supporters. Mel King chaired the massive, 250,000-strong 1990 rally on the Esplanade honoring Mandela. And leaders of the LGBTQ community recall that Mel King was the first elected official to march with them in the Gay Pride Parade.

Mel was also a poet. In his “Power of Love,” he says in part:

Love of power
Builds fences
Power of love
Opens doors….
The love of power sees limits
The power of love is infinite

Boston Mayors Kevin White and James Michael Curley have statues memorializing them in front of Faneuil Hall. The other statue there recalls the Revolutionary War patriot Samuel Adams. Its inscription reads: “He organized the Revolution.”

The person who most epitomized the ways and means of Samuel Adams in Boston from 1950 on was Mel King. Let’s put a statue of him there, too, and let’s all work for the economic and racial justice that we need.

Lew Finfer, the director of Massachusetts Action for Justice, is a Dorchester resident.

Mel King services set for two days next week, then brunch on April 16

A two-day “homegoing celebration” and a brunch at Dorchester’s Florian Hall are planned for next week as Mel King, who died on March 28 at age 94, is laid to rest.

A public viewing of the civil rights champion will take place on Mon., April 10, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Union United Methodist Church, 485 Columbus Ave., in Boston. A 6:30 p.m. speaking program is also on the schedule.

The funeral service will be held on Tuesday at noon with Rev. Dr. Jay Williams as the officiant, and eulogies provided by family and community members, including the Hon. Byron Rushing. 

Due to limited capacity, guest tickets will be required for in-person admission. Ticketing will be posted at unionboston.org/melking.

A Sunday brunch— in lieu of a repast— will be held at the Boston firefighter’s union hall, Dorchester’s Florian Hall, on Sun., April 16 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. See unionboston.org/melking for more info.