Sam Yoon Gains Mel King’s Favor

August 11, 2009
By: Richard Weir

Boston mayoral hopeful Sam Yoon picked up a key endorsement yesterday from longtime activist and long-ago mayoral candidate Mel King, who said the city councilor will bring a gust of fresh air to a stagnant City Hall.

“The campaign he’s waging has a focus on bringing all of the adults together in the interest of the children by saying that all the children are our children,” said King, 80, who made national headlines in 1983 when he became the city’s first black candidate for mayor, only to lose to Raymond L. Flynn.

King, who backed then acting Mayor Thomas Menino in the 1993 election, said programs for kids in Boston are getting short shrift, and lamented that only 60 percent of Boston public school students graduate in four years.

“I look at the school-to-prison pipeline and teen violence,” said King, adding that he feels Yoon “represents the kind of change in vision” that will make the needs of young people “the focus of us all.”

City Hall spokeswoman Dot Joyce noted that Menino launched the state’s first pre-kindergarten program. “I’m not going to comment on political matters,” she said. “People can endorse whoever they choose. The mayor’s record can speak for itself.”

King, a community organizer and MIT professor, became a political force when he led a 1968 rally where protesters camped out in tents in the South End demanding the city build housing rather than a parking garage.

Yoon said he was “deeply honored” that King, an “icon” with “a solid place in Boston’s history,” reached out to support him a week after former state Sen. William Owens did the same.

“The fact that two prominent African-American elder statesman have endorsed our campaign will hopefully embolden others to follow,” Yoon said.

*Click here to view original article.