Article January 20, 2003 Issue

'Love is the question and the answer'

MIT senior lecturer emeritus and former Massachusetts state representative Mel King speaks about prejudice in his life.

By Kim Shippey Senior Writer

Mel King, who has experienced discrimination "many, many, many" times in his life, doesn't hesitate when you ask him how prejudice can be healed: "Teaching ... good teaching."

He once wrote a young woman who longed to be an effective teacher: "In the middle of the word teacher is each. Then he and her. Of course it starts with t (tea). It gets better as it steeps. In the best sense, it's the relationship that kindles the fire."

King is never in a hurry. Ask him a question, and he'll take as much time as he needs to think it over—and often much more time to answer. He's a tall man with a resonant voice, but there's nothing aloof about him. He speaks so softly that you have to listen hard to catch what he's saying. Yet it's worth the effort, as many students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, community activists, politicians, and neighbors and children in the South End of Boston readily confirm.

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