Honor legacy of Melnea Cass by helping those at core of crisis
William Monroe Trotter, Louisa May Alcott, W.E.B. Du Bois, Phillis Wheatley, Malcolm X, Lucy Stone, Prince Hall … there is a seemingly endless list of extraordinary people who share in Boston’s rich history of activism and advocacy, displaying the kind of passion, faith and dedication to the tenets of equality that leave their mark on society long after their mortal lives have ended.
For all of the collective legacy left by those mentioned above, and so many others before and after them, and their shared love of and responsibility for humanity, particularly those who are chronically underserved, frequently undervalued and often unseen, few surpass the sheer volume of service given by Dr. Melnea Agnes Jones Cass.
As a Black woman born in 1896, Melnea Cass was informed and instigated into service by her and her family’s struggles against the oppression of racism and sexism. Her grandmother was born into slavery and her mother’s only option for employment was limited to work as a domestic servant. Earning the honorary title “the First Lady of Roxbury,” Cass helped breathe life into nearly all of the human rights movements of the time, with enough service and activism to fill at least two lifetimes.
An abbreviated listing of her vast body of work shows Cass as a prolific champion of the people.
To name but a few of her leadership efforts, Cass organized Black women to register and cast their first votes following the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920; helped to found the Boston chapter of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; led the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; founded the Freedom House with Muriel and Otto Snowden; organized Women In Community Service during World War II, which later became the Job Core; she founded the Kindergarten Mothers to encourage early education; and was appointed by Boston Mayor John Hynes to be the only woman charter member of Action for Boston Community Development, the anti-poverty agency that also gave assistance to people who lost their homes to urban renewal.
Honoring the many efforts that etched indelible marks on the world that she lived in, with echoes heard today, Cass earned several dedications, including the Melnea Cass Metropolitan District Commission Swimming and Skating Rink, the Melnea Cass YWCA in Boston’s Back Bay and her namesake Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury.
As we remember and celebrate this dynamic, powerful record of service and caring for those most in need, perhaps we should lean more heavily upon the legacy left by Cass to help guide us through the mortal struggle unfolding on and around the boulevard bearing her name.
In the environs of Newmarket Square, a long-simmering humanitarian crisis now boils over daily, as far too many men and women lose their battle against the devastating onslaught of addiction, mental illness and homelessness in full public view, with frequent drug deals, needle use, sex trafficking, violence and even murder overtaking the area.
While, sadly, none of this is new to Newmarket, over the past few years it is receiving a renewed focus by media outlets across the city and throughout the commonwealth due in equal parts to the rising tide of violence and two serious mayoral candidates jockeying for attention over the issue.
But, diagnosing a problem is only part of the solution. A full understanding of the myriad complex causes of the crisis must be followed by an equally thoughtful and humanistic response with plans that address the issues in their totality with the kind of persistence and commitment befitting the great Melnea Cass.
We know that the crisis of addiction, particularly the opioid epidemic, is being further fueled by an inadequate mental health infrastructure, lack of affordable housing and persistent racial disparities.
We are advocating for the creation of a centralized leadership structure in City Hall to work transparently with all communities. Additionally, Boston must lead a taskforce of regional municipal leaders to press our state and federal partners for additional funding to realize a decentralized recovery infrastructure.
Chronic homelessness and housing instability are additional root causes of this crisis. We must identify the gaps in our housing framework and then streamline our overly complicated zoning procedures to realize deeply affordable housing that is tied into an integrated transportation network in the city.
Many unhoused Bostonians who suffer from mental health and substance use disorders are at a disadvantage trying to navigate the many programs and benefits available to them. Along with decentralizing the physical location of services, we must ensure superior funding for professional case coordinators to assist these individuals with accessing all services they are entitled to receive.
While services are available during the day, the unhoused population is left without resources at night, which then often precipitates a law enforcement response that does not effectively service this population. In order to break this cycle of criminalization, we must lead with public health solutions and expand access to social service networks, and we must also work to strengthen collaboration between all city departments, ensuring dedicated resources for impacted families and targeted support for businesses, neighbors and community members.
In this battle for the very lives of the people living on the streets of “Mass and Cass,” and across Suffolk County, we must also have all options on the table, recognizing that even if all of the aforementioned resources were made available, there are some who are incapable or unable to avail themselves of these lifesaving services without more robust assistance. This includes, but is not limited to, my proposal to join forces with the local law enforcement and city and state agencies to provide treatment services in a separate, dedicated stand-alone unit within Department facilities for those individuals meeting these criteria.
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to house and treat a population desperately crying out for basic human dignity. The road to completion requires realistic, short and medium-term goals under a centralized authority in the city.
While the work ahead is both daunting and difficult, it is by no means impossible. If we commit our hearts, our minds and most importantly our wills to the work of it, we can solve this crisis.
Ultimately, there is no excuse not to act, for in the words of Melnea Cass herself, “If we cannot do great things, we can do small things in a great way.”