League of Women for Community Service looks to the next 100 years of helping Black Bostonians

The League of Women for Community Service is a Black women’s service organization operating throughout the city to provide and sustain resources for the Black community. Organized under Maria L. Baldwin’s steadfast leadership and initially headquartered at 428 Massachusetts Ave., the LWCS was incorporated in 1920 to undertake charitable, civic, educational and social work for the benefit of the community.

A youth group stands in front of the headquarters of the League of Women for Community Service at 558 Massachusetts Avenue in 1926. PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

The oldest Black women’s service organization in the country, the League has been contributing to Boston’s history in instrumental ways. In the 1950s, Coretta Scott King lived at the League’s headquarters at 558 Massachusetts Ave. while she  was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music. She and other Black women who weren’t welcome to live on their campuses were offered housing at the League headquarters in the 1940s and 1950s.

“The League was founded as essentially a Black women’s club, a women’s club,” said Kalimah Redd Knight, president of the League’s board of directors. “People don’t really participate in women’s clubs in the same format that they did years and years ago. So, part of my role is to help the League as it kind of modernizes itself.”

A young Coretta Scott King lived at the headquarters of the League of Women for Community Service at 558 Massachusetts Ave. when she was a student at New England Conservatory of Music in the early 1950s. PHOTO: Courtesy of The League of Women for Community Service

Over time, as government organizations formed and became less discriminatory toward Black Americans, the League’s mission became less of a necessity in Black Boston. Now, the organization is undergoing something of a re-launch.

“We’re sort of going through a revival. A renaissance, and really working to bring the organization back,” said Redd Knight, “so, our focus right now is education and culture. We’re still a service-based organization and partnering with other organizations [on projects and service initiatives] that have similar missions.”

Redd Knight, the senior deputy director of media relations at Tufts University, got involved with the League in 2004 with her sister after being introduced to the organization by their great-aunt.

She worked with the League as a volunteer and board member until 2012, when she stepped away from the organization. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Redd Knight rejoined the League in the wake of the country’s “racial reckoning,” as she put it. After rejoining the organization in 2021, she was voted president of the board of directors in 2022.

A vintage image (left) of the headquarters of the League of Women for Community Service at 558 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston’s South End and a more recent photo of the property. The League plans to renovate the building. PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

A primary focus of the board under Redd Knight’s leadership has been that of strengthening the foundation of the organization.

“I’m really involved with helping repot the organization as we kind of set a course for the future,” she said.

“What is our vision for? You know a sustainable path for the organization so that we can you continue to last for the next 100 years. I’m sort of helping to lead the process of rebuilding infrastructure, rebuilding a vision, rebuilding a path forward for the organization to reaffirm our relevance in the community.”

Redd Knight is working with the organization on its journey to modernization and sustainability. She is also passionate about reintroducing the League to the city in a few ways, one of which being the restoration of its South End headquarters, a historic former mansion and the focus of one of the city’s Archaeology Program projects.

“We also have a historically significant archive that was once housed in the [headquarters]. It’s now on site at Simmons University, so we want to make sure that the collection is preserved and more accessible to the community,” Redd Knight said. “Our third goal is to really expand and increase our educational and cultural impact programming for the community.”

The award ceremony for the newly named Sarah-Ann Shaw/Maria L. Baldwin Scholarship in May 2024. LWCS presents deserving college-bound high school graduates with a scholarship each spring. From left, LWCS board members Jalene Tamerat, Jacquelyne Arrington, scholarship award winners Sybille Delice and Shaumba-Subíra Dibinga-Robinson, and LWCS board members Mildred Jones and Kalimah Redd Knight. PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

Currently, the League offers the Maria Baldwin League Scholarship, an annual spring scholarship for high school girls transitioning to college who have showcased educational excellence as well as civic engagement. Another one of the League’s community initiatives is the Virginia Glennon Graduate Students Leadership Scholars Program for women enrolled in graduate programs in the Boston area. Scholars serve as mentors and volunteers with the organization and act as a community for Black women pursuing master’s degrees.

The League has raised $2 million of a $5-million-dollar campaign that will allow the organization to move forward with plans to renovate the headquarters at 558 Massachusetts Ave.

As it evolves, the League’s continued commitment to Black Boston through providing and being a community resource is unwavering.