Melvin T. Mason | |
|---|---|
 Mason in 2019 | |
| Born | January 7, 1943 Providence, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Civil rights activist, social worker |
| Known for | 1984 presidential candidacy (SWP) |
| Movement | Civil Rights Movement |
| Spouse | Regina Mason |
Melvin T. Mason (born January 7, 1943) is an American politician who ran as Socialist Workers Party candidate for President of the United States in the 1984 United States presidential election. [1] [2] [3]
Melvin T. Mason was born in Providence, Kentucky on January 7, 1943 [1] [3] and moved to Seaside, California in 1956 with his mother when he was 13. [4] Mason became a star basketball player at Monterey High School. [1] [3]
Mason graduated from high school in 1960 and then attended Monterey Peninsula College (junior college) until 1961 when he entered the Air Force. [1] [3] Mason was named Air Force European Command Player of the Year in 1964, after setting high scoring records for the US military in Europe. [1] [5] The Air Force gave Mason a bad conduct discharge in 1965. Mason believes that the bad conduct status was because he had objected to bad treatment of black servicemen. US Senator Thomas Kuchel had the discharged changed to honorable. [5]
1966 Mason returned to Monterey Peninsula College where he became the only All-America basketball player in the school's history. [1] [3] He accepted an Oregon State University basketball scholarship but after taking stands against racist treatment of black basketball players, he lost his scholarship in 1966. [5] Mason was banned from playing basketball at any college in the U.S and his sports career was over.[ citation needed ]
In 1972 Mason earned B.A. in social science at Golden Gate University, [5] and in 1995 an M.A. in social work from San Jose State University.
Mason joined the Black Panther Party in 1968. [6] [7] [8] and in 1970 he organized the Black United Farmworkers (UFW) support committee. [5] In 1976 Mason was involved investigations and campaigns to stop police brutality on the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas California. [2] [4] 1980 Mason was elected [7] [2] to the city council of Seaside, CA . Mason had launched campaign to recall former Seaside mayor (then a city councilman) Lou Haddad, whom Mason called an “enemy of black people.” He joined a broad coalition called the Citizens’ League for Progress [9] and defeated Haddad. That next year, Mason ran for the Seaside City Council seat and won. [9]
In 1982 Mason tried to run for Governor of California on the Socialist Workers Party ticket when he was ruled off the ballot. [10] 1984 – Ran as Socialist Workers Party candidate for United States President in the 1984 United States presidential election. [1] [2] [3] Along with vice presidential candidates Andrea Gonzales and Matilde Zimmermann (different vice presidential candidates in different states), he received 24,672 votes. [10]
Mason was a 1988 plaintiff in a lawsuit against government spying on activists. [11] A federal court decision codified the successful fifteen-year legal effort by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) regarding decades of spying and disruption by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [12]
From 1996 until retirement in 2006, Mason worked at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB). [5] He was appointed to the Access to Excellence Committee, designed to increase the admission of minority students with the California State University System. [1] [6] 1998 The police shooting of Charles Vaughn [13] led to a new crisis intervention training for Monterey County police forces. [14] [15] In 2001 Mason was licensed as a clinical social worker (LCSW) by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. In 2002 Mason was elected President of the Monterey, California Peninsula chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for two consecutive terms [5] Mason chaired a committee that successfully created Monterey Peninsula College's trustee districts to ensure voter equity and increase minority representation on the college's board of trustees [16] Mason is the co-founder of The Village Project [17] that provides services culturally tailored to African Americans and other populations historically underserved by mental health systems and after-school academy for high-risk students. [7] [17]
Monterey is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under both Spain (1804–1821) and Mexico (1822–1846). During this period, Monterey hosted California's first theater, public building, public library, publicly funded school, printing-press, and newspaper. It was originally the only port of entry for all taxable goods in California. In 1846, during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848, the United States Flag was raised over the Customs House. After Mexico ceded California to the U.S. at the end of the war, Monterey hosted California's first constitutional convention in 1849.
Monterey County, officially the County of Monterey, is a county located on the Pacific coast in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 439,035. The county's largest city and county seat is Salinas.
Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles, accessible via Highway 1 and Highway 280.
Seaside, formerly East Monterey, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, with a population of 32,366 as of the 2020 census. It is located 2.25 miles (3.6 km) east-northeast of Monterey, at an elevation of 33 feet (10 m), and is the home of California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), UC MBEST Center, and the Monterey College of Law, which are located on the site of the former military base Fort Ord. Also on the site are the Bayonet and Black Horse golf courses, now open to the public and host to PGA Tour events, including the 2012 PGA Professional National Championship. Seaside is the gateway to Fort Ord National Monument, created on April 20, 2012.
Asa Philip Randolph was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American-led labor union. In the early Civil Rights Movement and the Labor Movement, Randolph was a prominent voice. His continuous agitation with the support of fellow labor rights activists against racist labor practices helped lead President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully maintained pressure, so that President Harry S. Truman proposed a new Civil Rights Act and issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 in 1948, promoting fair employment and anti-discrimination policies in federal government hiring, and ending racial segregation in the armed services.
The Central Coast is an area of California, roughly spanning the coastal region between Point Mugu and Monterey Bay. It lies northwest of Los Angeles and south of the San Francisco Bay Area, and includes the rugged, rural, and sparsely populated stretch of coastline known as Big Sur.
California State University, Monterey Bay is a public university in Monterey County, California. Its main campus is located on the site of the former military base Fort Ord, straddling the cities of Seaside and Marina, about one mile inland from Monterey Bay along the Central Coast of California. CSUMB also has locations in the cities of Monterey and Salinas. Founded in 1994, CSUMB is part of the California State University system and is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission. The university is a Hispanic-serving institution.
The Communist Party USA, ideologically committed to foster a socialist revolution in the United States, played a significant role in defending the civil rights of African Americans during its most influential years of the 1930s and 1940s. In that period, the African-American population was still concentrated in the South, where it was largely disenfranchised, excluded from the political system, and oppressed under Jim Crow laws.
Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas. The term "Red Summer" was coined by civil rights activist and author James Weldon Johnson, who had been employed as a field secretary by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1916. In 1919, he organized peaceful protests against the racial violence.
Melvin Jack Hein, sometimes known as "Old Indestructible", was an American football player and coach. In the era of one-platoon football, he played as a center and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963 as part of the first class of inductees. He was also named to the National Football League (NFL) 50th, 75th, and 100th Anniversary All-Time Teams.
Melvin Ray Hutchins was an American basketball player. He played professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1951 to 1958. Hutchins was selected by the Tri-Cities Blackhawks with the second pick in the 1951 NBA draft and was a four-time NBA All-Star.
Seaside High School is a school located in Seaside, California. The school first opened in September 1963 to sophomores and juniors, graduating its first class in June 1965. Average annual enrollment is 1,400 students, attending grades 9–12. The school serves the communities of Seaside, Monterey, Marina, Sand City, and Del Rey Oaks. Its student body reflects the region's diversity of language, ethnicity, nationality, and cultures. The school mascot is the Spartan.
Melvin "Mel" Edwards is an American artist, teacher, and abstract steel-metal sculptor. Additionally he has worked in drawing and printmaking. His artwork has political content often referencing African-American history, as well as the exploration of themes within slavery. Visually his works are characterized by the use of straight-edged triangular and rectilinear forms in metal. He lives between Upstate New York and in Plainfield, New Jersey.
Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) is a public community college in Monterey, California. Established in 1947, it is a part of the California Community Colleges system. There are two additional MPC campuses located in Marina, CA, and Seaside, CA. The current college President is Dr. Marshall T. Fulbright III.
Benjamin Todd Jealous is an American civil rights leader, environmentalist and executive director of the Sierra Club. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 2008 to 2013. When he was selected to head the NAACP at age 35, he became the organization's youngest-ever national leader. The Washington Post in 2013 described him as "one of the nation's most prominent civil rights leaders."
William Wheeler Monning is an American politician who was elected to the California State Senate in 2012. A Democrat, he served in the 17th Senate District which encompasses the Central Coast. Monning was reelected to the Senate in 2016 for a second and final term ending in November, 2020. Education, the environment and public health are areas of particular interest to Monning.
David Jacks was a powerful Californian landowner, developer, and businessman. Born in Scotland, he emigrated to California during the 1849 Gold Rush, and soon acquired several thousand acres in and around Monterey, shaping the history of Monterey County in the first decades of American possession. He is also credited as being the first to market and popularize Monterey Jack cheese. He was born David Jack, but took to spelling his last name "Jacks" once in California.
L. K. Samuels, also known as Lawrence Samuels, is an American author, classical liberal, and libertarian activist. He is best known as the editor and contributing author of Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer and In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action. He coined the phrase "social chaology", which refers to the studies of complex, holistic, and self-organizing nature of society in relationship to the linear, predatory and "planned chaos" predispositions of government.
The Monterey County Weekly is a locally owned and independent newsmedia company founded in 1988. As per the publication's name, it publishes in print weekly, and since 2020 online daily as Monterey County NOW. The company is based in the city of Seaside, in Monterey County, California. The Weekly has been a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia since 1989.
Phillip Neal "Phil" Butler is a retired United States Navy officer and pilot. He was the eighth-longest-held U.S. prisoner of war (POW) held in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Butler, who was forced to eject after a mid-air explosion on April 20, 1965, was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam until his release as part of Operation Homecoming in 1973. Butler was one of the five POWs credited with establishing the tap code. The code enabled the prisoners to communicate with each other.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)