Melnea Cass testifying at the MA State House’s Garner Auditorium

A representative from Boston National Parks Service will be at the South End library in a talk called Doing things in a Small Way, about the life and times of Melnea Cass who in the 1960s and 70s was at the forefront of the fight for civil rights and school integration for the African American community of Boston. She was never elected to public office, but widely known as a community activitst who spent decades of her life fighting for the cause of civil rights.

According to a 2011 Bay State Banner article, Cass began a lifetime of volunteer work on the local, state and national level in the 1930s, contributing to the Robert Gould Shaw House, a settlement house and community center. She was the founder of the Kindergarten Mothers, a member of the Pansy Embroidery Club, Harriet Tubman Mothers’ Club and the Sojourner Truth Club. She also worked at the Northeastern Region of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs as a secretary and helped form the Boston local of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. 

Melnea Cass’s face is part of a street mural in Dudley Square painted in 1995 by teen artists guided by Mike Womble, called Faces of Dudley.

During World War II she was one of the organizers of Women In Community Service, which later became Boston’s sponsor of the Job Corps. In 1949 she helped found Freedom House, and a year later, she was appointed as the only female charter member to Action for Boston Community Development, which assisted people who lost their homes to urban renewal efforts. From 1962 to 1964, Cass was president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. From 1975 to 1976, Cass was chairperson for the Massachusetts Advisory Committee for the Elderly. 

Cass died in 1978. Melnea Cass Boulevard was named for her, as was the Melnea Cass Metropolitan District Commission Swimming and Skating Rink dedicated by Gov. John Volpe. She received honorary doctorates from Northeastern University, Simmons College and Boston College .