The Mel King Brunch Event Attracts Boston Youth Activists

By Rosa Morales Simmons

Mel King Brunch attendees mingle at the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building. Photo from Edwin Sumpter

Boston youth activism is alive at Mel King’s community-building brunch tradition. The South End Brunch Club, in honor of his legacy posthumously, are continuing King’s tradition of cultivating youth activism within the community.

Melvin H. King’s history in community involvement included establishing leadership pipelines in effort to maintain and support activism among his city’s youth. After feedback from King’s family over the underwhelming amount of youth participation at the previous four brunches, The South End Brunch Club’s initiative now emphasizes King’s passion to pass on activism to the younger generations. 

“We have a focus on closing that intergenerational gap. We have young people. We have a mixed crowd. With every event we see the numbers increasing, and we're very mindful of making sure that we continue that,” said Heather Cook, CEO of the South End Brunch Club. 

The organizers developed the Mel King Leadership Award for younger role models in community work and honored their first recipient this past September, Carrie Mays in salute for her work in youth activism, civic engagement and community wellness. Mays’ history as a Boston youth leader in adjacent Black Lives Matter protests, and a previous member of the non-profit Center for Teen Empowerment, standardized the qualities of prospective Mel King Leadership awardees.  

“We wanted to make sure that we recognize young leaders today – so that they can be associated with what Mel did.” Edwin Sumpter, COO of South End Brunch Club continued, “they can tell their counterparts who are also around their age, and they might get interested… Who was Mel King? What did he do? And I think that's one way we're funneling that tradition and legacy into the next generation by making sure young people are a part of what we're doing.”

The late Massachusetts’ State Representative, teacher and Boston-centered community activist, Mel King, hosted about six decades of Sunday brunch for community bonding and staging discourse encompassing issues affecting the public. The South End native, as the first Black mayoral candidate to make the general election ballot, viewed youth as “the most underutilized resource. ” 

“Mel laid a blueprint that was very successful in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. That did him very well, and as a result, did the community of color, especially the African American community, very well.” Said Sumpter, “it's important that the next generation, the younger generation, knows how he did it, and how he did it with a supportive community.”

The SEBC said they used King’s blueprint to promote youth involvement at their brunch events, while also implementing the arts to develop holistic connections among multi-generational attendees. 

“When we're bringing the young and the old together, a big part of that component is creative expression.” Bless Robinson, CCO of the South End Brunch Club continued, “through the creativeness of the arts that also exemplifies love, harmony, faith, joy — you tend to free yourself to really receive more of that direction and purpose from your ancestors.”

In October, Mel King’s Brunch Leadership Award found its second winner, Aziza Robinson-Goodnight, a Boston-based, youth community leader who works to address systemic challenges hurting the neighboring Black communities. Honoring awardees like established community-builder, Robinson-Goodnight, influenced budding activists to get involved. 

“They may not be coming to our brunch events in the big numbers we want them to, but I think since we’ve been giving out leadership awards, it has brought a lot of young people with them,” said Sumpter.