Melvin B. Miller

Melvin B. Miller, the former publisher and editor of the Bay State Banner, was inducted last Saturday into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame.

On June 22, we gathered to honor Mel Miller, the founder and owner of the Bay State Banner for more than 57 years. We gathered not only to celebrate him for his work as a businessman, but also to thank him for being one of Boston’s most effective civil rights leaders.

In 1998, I went undercover as a motorist, driving with a friend through Brookline at 1 a.m. to determine how long it would take for police in the town to pull over a Black motorist. We lasted 20 minutes before three cruisers boxed us in on Beacon Street. An officer asked us whether we were lost and noted that I was from Roxbury.

It’s been a long and remarkable journey for the Banner, since publisher Melvin Miller first opened the Banner’s doors, stepping into the shoes of William Monroe Trotter and other black publishers who blazed the trail in the 19th and 20th centuries.

After 57 years as publisher of the Bay State Banner, it is time for me to step down.

A younger but seasoned generation of journalists is leading the Bay State Banner into its second half century in the wake of its sale Feb. 28 to a new Black ownership team.