A public viewing and visitation will be held Monday, with a funeral service on Tuesday
By Sam Doran •
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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 on Oct. 9, 1984.
Longtime Boston activist and former state representative Mel King, who died last Tuesday at 94, will be remembered next week with a wake and funeral service in the South End.
Though he lost the 1983 mayor's race to his former House colleague, Ray Flynn, King's groundbreaking campaign marked the first time a Black candidate advanced to the final mayoral ballot in Boston. He remained active as a community organizer.
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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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Massachusetts State Rep. Mel King in the mid-1970s.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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A mural of Mel King at McKinley Elementary School in Boston’s Back Bay.
A public viewing and visitation is set for Monday, April 10 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., with an opportunity for "witnesses from the community" from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
