Though she was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1896, Melnea A. Cass devoted her life to making the city of Boston a better, more equitable place to live.
“She was a great person–a great woman. . . . A great leader of her community. . . and a great Bostonian.” ~ Mayor Kevin H. White, 1978
The Cass family moved to Boston’s South End when Cass was five years old and, three years later, when her mother died, Melnea Cass moved to Newburyport, a small suburb north of Boston, where she was raised by her aunt. After attending a parochial high school in Virginia, Cass returned to Boston where she spent the remainder of her life striving to promote social justice and civil rights in the city.
Throughout the 1920s, when Cass was in her early twenties, she helped black women register to vote in Massachusetts. In her thirties, Cass became a community advocate and leader. She helped found the Boston chapter of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first labor organization led by African Americans.
Because Cass was especially active in community-based activism in the South End and Roxbury, she was affectionately nicknamed the “First Lady of Roxbury.” Working alongside social workers Muriel and Otto Snowden, Cass helped establish Freedom House in 1949. The nonprofit organization began a community-based group advocating for the African American community in Roxbury. Today, Freedom House continues to improve education and relations between racial, ethnic, and religious groups in the city.
Cass championed social justice and rights of African Americans in Boston and served as a leader of several local institutions and causes including the Mayor’s Citizen’s Advisory Committee on Minority Housing and the Harriet Tubman House. When Cass was in her early fifties, John Collins, then Mayor of Boston, appointed her to the Action for Boston Community Development, making her its only female charter member. She served as the Boston president of the NAACP from 1962 until 1964, and in the mid-1970s she was appointed chairperson for the Massachusetts Advisory Committee.
In 1969, when she was 72 years of age, Northeastern University awarded Cass an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree, in recognition for her community-based activism.
Melnea Cass played an active role in community leadership until the end of her life. When she died in December 1978, Boston’s mayor, Kevin H. White, wrote a poignant eulogy that highlighted her tireless, life-long devotion to social justice and healing “the rift between the races and provide for a better life for black Americans.” He noted, “her life was so connected with the life of this city… it is difficult to imagine Boston without her.”
Interested in learning more about Cass and her work? Check out local archives! Northeastern University Archives & Special Collections houses the Melnea A. Cass papers. The collection contains biographical information and awards, and photographs documenting her work with community improvement and civil rights organizations. Northeastern University also houses the Freedom House Photographs, which are digitized, as well as the Freedom House, Inc. records.
Boston City Archives also holds records related to Melnea Cass’s life and work. In fall 2016, graduate student Monica Haberny completed an internship at Boston City Archives where she discovered materials about Cass in the “Boston 200” collection and Mayor Kevin H. White records. The latter have recently been digitized and are available online. Check out the fully searchable, newly digitized collections at Boston City Archives.
Cass’s legacy lives on in Boston; in Roxbury, Melnea Cass Boulevard was named in her honor and she is commemorated on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.