PHOTOS: Boston Civil Rights Icon Mel King Through the Years
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Beloved activist Mel King, who represented part of Boston on Beacon Hill for nearly a decade and became the first Black person to reach the general election running for the city's mayor, died at his home in South Boston on Tuesday, March 28, 2023.
10 photos
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Bob Dean/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Mel King, who runs an employment service for local teenagers, is pictured in his office at the United South End Settlements in South Boston on July 26, 1963.
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Ulrike Welsch/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Massachusetts State Rep. Mel King in the mid-1970s.
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George Rizer/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Roxbury Rep. Mel King speaks to a crowd protesting murders in Roxbury and Dorchester outside Mayor Kevin White’s house in Boston on April 28, 1979.
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John Blanding/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Boston mayoral candidate Mel King, far left, joins a singalong during a “rainbow celebration” held by his supporters at City Hall Plaza in Boston on Nov. 5, 1983.
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David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Former mayoral candidate Mel King talks about the record to date of Boston Mayor Ray Flynn’s administration in his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA on Oct. 9, 1984.
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Jessica Rinaldi for The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Mel King is unshackled by a officer in Boston Municipal Court at the conclusion of an Oct. 3, 2013 arraignment after being arrested during a protest.
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Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Ray Flynn and Mel King talk about their friendship and collaboration to teach schoolchildren about democracy and civic engagement on Sept. 6, 2016. Over the course of six decades or so, Mel King and Ray Flynn have been friends, occasional allies, historic rivals, then friends again. They were the last combatants standing in what many consider Boston’s last great mayors race in 1983.
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Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Activist and former state Legislator Mel King, center, is honored by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, left, who announced he would name a street after him during the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast in Boston on Jan. 16, 2017.
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John Blanding/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Boston mayoral candidate Mel King, far left, joins a singalong during a “rainbow celebration” held by his supporters at City Hall Plaza in Boston on Nov. 5, 1983.
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NBC10 Boston
A mural of Mel King at McKinley Elementary School in Boston’s Back Bay.
