Author: Isabelle Zhang

  • Boston’s Black leaders honored as Trailblazers; say city has a long way to go

    Isabelle Zhang

    Civic leaders and honorees gather for the second annual Trailblazers & Torchbearers: A Celebration of Black Leadership and Excellence at the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building. From left are: State Rep. John Moran, Rahn Dorsey, Michael Curry, Clayton Turnbull, Kim Janey, BGCB staff member Saaran Silah, Michele Courton Brown, BGCB Board Chair Melissa Weiner Janfaza, BGCB staff member Fernando Phillips and BGCB Nicholas President and CEO Robert Lewis, Jr. PHOTO: ROXBURY BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB

    Leaders across health care, food and government gathered at the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building Monday night to celebrate Black leadership at the city’s second annual Trailblazers and Torchbearers event.

    The event featured a panel of five local leaders who discussed challenges Black and brown communities face in Boston and alongside possible solutions.

    “This is our Boston, but our Boston success is only going to be that all of us are successful at the same time,” said event organizer and Boys and Girls Club CEO Robert Lewis Jr.

    Fernando Phillips, who manages the Teen Career Pathways at the the Boys and Girls Club, said he was “a kid in the community who had a nonprofit.” Now an instructor at the Boys and Girls Club, Phillips is glad to give back to his community and the next generation.

    “I think having an event like this is important because we could see Black leaders in the neighborhood that they built, in the neighborhood that they grew up in,” Phillips said in an interview with the Banner.

    “This neighborhood is a beacon for something new, something that the kids could aspire to look at, and not be afraid when they walk through. [They] know that when they are a Roxbury kid, they can walk with their head high and feel proud about that,” he added.

    Michele Courton Brown, who will become the first Black board chair with the Boys and Girls Club in October, led the panel discussion. She began by asking panelists how growing up in Boston shaped their leadership styles and worldviews.

    Michael Curry, honoree, panelist and the president of Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, said growing up in Roxbury exposed him early to the city’s racial inequalities.

    Everywhere he went, Curry said, he noticed the people who were successful or in positions of authority — such as doctors and police officers — were white, whereas those who went to jail looked like him.

    “The people dying of cocaine, the crack condition, looked like me,” Curry said. “They were Black and brown.” Curry said his leadership “was born out of this notion that this can’t be right” and a desire to understand why.

    “That didn’t make sense to me, because all the dudes I grew up with — smart, brilliant dudes,” Curry said. “And I’m saying, ‘Why is it this dude ain’t in college? Why is it this dude ain’t running a business?’ Because they were denied the opportunity.”

    Boys and Girls Club director of academic success and panelist Saaran Sillah said she has seen “firsthand how academic outcomes are tied to access and opportunity.” Encouraging her fellow leaders to find ways to lift up young people, she added that, “This city has incredible opportunities, but also very real disparities.”

    As a result, Sillah said she works to ensure Black and brown children become “academically strong and personally empowered,” especially in “spaces where they may not be seen or represented.”

    “We make sure that their voice matters and teach them how to use their voice,” Sillah said.

    Progress toward racial equity citywide, however, remains slow, according to panelist and former acting mayor Kim Janey. Janey, who became Boston’s first Black and woman mayor in 2021, said inequality persists in part because too many people have grown “too content.”

    “We are too satisfied being the only one in the room and having the access and proximity to what we perceive as power, versus building the real power needed to change the conditions in our own community,” Janey said.

    Often, Curry said, Black professionals are chosen for a leadership position because those who pick them know they “wouldn’t push the issue.”

    “You make them comfortable,” Curry said. “They chose you because your interests overrode the interests of the advocacy in the community that you was there to represent.”

    Curry added he and others at the event have often been featured on lists of the “Top 50 Power Movers” and “150 Most Influential” people, but, as honored as he is to be on those lists, it translates into very little actual influence.

    The first Trailblazers and Torchbearers event in 2025 bridged past and present to explore issues facing Black and brown communities, whereas this year’s focused on the collective impact Black leaders have on those issues, according to Lewis of the Boys and Girls Club.

    As a trailblazer, Lewis said he felt compelled to continue the work and encourage fellow leaders. Other honorees include Clayton Turnbull, CEO of The Waldin Group, and Rahn Dorsey, president and CEO of the Eastern Bank Foundation. 

    “I feel obligated because I stand here on the backs of so many that believed in me, nurtured me, developed me, and mentored me,” Lewis said. “So I feel I have a moral obligation to lift up our community, lift up generations.”

    This story is part of a partnership between the Bay State Banner and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Trailblazing actress Judy Pace has died

    Isabelle Zhang

    Judy Pace, a trailblazing actress and blaxploitation star whose career helped expand opportunities for Black women in film and television, died in her sleep March 11. She was 83.

    In a career spanning more than four decades, Pace built a wide-ranging body of work, earning recognition for her role as the ambitious Pat Walters on “The Young Lawyers” and as the villainess Vickie Fletcher on “Peyton Place.”

    In a 2023 interview with The Actor’s Choice, Pace revealed that through her leading role as Pat Walters, she became the first Black actress starring in a series whose title bears the name of their character. As Vickie on “Peyton Place,” she was the first Black teenager to play a recurring character on television.

    Additionally, in playing Vickie, Pace was among the first Black women to star as an antagonist on a major television series — a groundbreaking role in an era when Black women were frequently relegated to subservient or one-dimensional characters.

    Pace distinguished herself through her range and determination to take on more dynamic parts. Her appearances in “Three in the Attic” (1968), “Brian’s Song” (1971) and scores of other films challenged stereotypes and demonstrated that Black actresses could occupy a broader spectrum of roles on screen.

    Pace was born in 1942 in Los Angeles. Her father, an airplane mechanic, and her mother, a dressmaker, established the largest Black-owned retail shop in the area at the time, Kitty’s Place.

    While attending Los Angeles City College, where she studied sociology, Pace began modeling. She appeared in the Ebony Fashion Fair in 1963, and at age 20, she became the youngest model to ever walk the runway for the show — an experience that would change the trajectory of her life.

    According to Ebony Magazine, director William Castle cast Pace in the film “13 Frightened Girls” after seeing her modeling photos.

    Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Pace continued to break barriers. Described by Variety magazine as “the most beautiful Black actress in Hollywood,” she was known for her beauty in addition to her acting abilities. She became the first spokesmodel for Fashion Fair Cosmetics, a Black-owned and founded beauty brand, and appeared regularly in its national advertising campaigns.

    In 1965, she was featured as the first Black bachelorette on “The Dating Game,” a competitive reality TV show.

    Pace’s film work during the 1970s placed her firmly within the blaxploitation film scene, a genre that helped create new visibility for Black actors. She appeared in films such as “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970) and “Frogs” (1972), taking on roles that contributed to a growing presence of Black characters in mainstream cinema.

    Though the blaxploitation film genre was often criticized for reinforcing stereotypes, it also provided opportunities for Black actors that had previously been unavailable. Pace’s work reflected both the possibilities and the limitations of the era.

    Beyond her on-screen achievements, Pace was known for her advocacy in the acting industry.

    In 1971, Pace co-founded the Kwanza Foundation in partnership with actress Nichelle Nichols. The organization aimed to support Black women in film and provide scholarships to minority students pursuing the arts. Her work as an actress helped lay the groundwork for future generations of Black actresses to pursue careers with fewer structural limitations.

    In the 2023 interview with The Actor’s Choice host Ron Brewington, Pace said there were few Black performers working in film and television when she entered the industry.

    “There weren’t many of us out there in the ’60s,” Pace said. “This was during the time when if someone was on TV, and the’ were Black, you would get on the phone and call your friends and say, ‘Turn on Channel 2, there’s a Black man on there!’ Or, ‘Turn on Channel 4, there’s a Black woman on there!’”

    Colleagues and admirers remembered Pace as a trailblazer whose influence extended beyond her performances.

    Close friend and fellow actress Tatyana Ali shared in a social media post following Pace’s passing that the actress was “elegance, sophistication and generosity personified.”

    “What an honor to have worked with you and spent some time in your shine,” Ali wrote.

    In 1972, Pace married actor Don Mitchell, another pioneering Black actor who played notable roles in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple had two daughters before divorcing in 1984.

    She remarried Major League Baseball player Curt Flood in 1986 and remained with him until his death in 1997.

    Pace leaves her daughters, Shawn Pace Mitchell and Julia Pace Mitchell; and a grandson.

  • City Strings United breaks down barriers to music, arts education for Boston youth

    City Strings United breaks down barriers to music, arts education for Boston youth

    City Strings United frequently partners with the Celebrity Series of Boston for their Neighborhood Arts Stringfest series. Photo: Robert Torres

    Twelve rental instruments, a teaching space courtesy of Twelfth Baptist Church, and one hand-drawn logo were all that composer and cellist Bithyah Israel was working with when she launched City Strings United, a nonprofit offering free music lessons to children in Roxbury.

    Founded in 2012, City Strings offers lessons in piano, violin and cello to children ages four to 18 and seeks to fill a gap for accessible music education in urban Boston. Everything is free aside from a $25 annual fee, which can be waived due to financial need, said Israel.

    “You just don’t see representation of a lot of our communities on stage that often,” Israel said. “So there still is a need to elevate the young people in our communities [and] we need to bridge the gap to access to opportunities.”

    Cello students practice at City Strings United. Photo: City Strings United

    Boston-born Israel, a cellist of 30 years, said her parents couldn’t afford music lessons, but she received free cello lessons as a child from a cellist in the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Learning to play cello “really opened a world of possibilities,” Israel said, as she went on to become an independent cellist and performer.

    Her lived experiences inspired her to found City Strings, Israel said, as she “felt a desire to help more kids get access” in the same way she did.

    “I feel like playing music is a skill like reading,” Israel said. “You can pay to get tutored. But it’s really a free knowledge.”

    After returning to Boston from San Diego, Israel searched for a community music program she could volunteer with but couldn’t find anything.

    While she initially disregarded the idea to launch her own program from a church friend, she later found herself inspired by City Lax, a documentary about young people in the Denver Metro area who had no previous experience with lacrosse yet went on to become state champions.

    “During the final game, I was yelling at the TV like it was the Super Bowl,” Israel said. “I was just like, ‘These kids have to win.’”

    Cello students practice at City Strings United. Photo: City Strings United

    That evening, she sat at her kitchen table and drew the logo for City Strings United. Another friend from church donated money, which she used to rent instruments from a store in Newton, and she asked the historic Twelfth Baptist Church if she could use their space to offer free cello lessons.

    Over the next two Sundays, the church announced Israel’s lessons and soon there were 12 kids signed up for the pilot program.

    Among the inaugural members was Alexia Martinez, who started learning at City Strings when she was in the second grade. Now, 14 years later, she has returned to the organization as the program assistant and lead arts administrative apprentice.

    “I enjoy giving back to students who kind of remind me of myself, in the way that they’re young urban kids,” Martinez said. “It’s adding so much to their experience as a young person that lives in Boston because some of those opportunities aren’t always afforded.”

    While in the fifth grade Martinez moved to Norwood, a suburb of Boston, where she said the schools offered band, orchestra and choir. Martinez said there was”none of that” in  her previous school district in Dorchester.

    “It showed me as a young person that in different communities, there are different opportunities for people, and those people look different,” Martinez said.

    The opportunity to learn an instrument is “not as prevalent in the city” as it is in the suburbs, Martinez said.

    “I think it’s important for our young people in the city to know that they are capable of playing something like a classical instrument, even though they may not be in a financial position or in a good location to have that opportunity,” she said.

    Aisha Payne, whose children Amelia and Royce attend City Strings, said the organization has “opened up a different avenue” for them. They learned about City Springs at a community event at Twelfth Baptist Church where parents were invited to sign up their children for free lessons on the weekends.

    “The cello and the violin, I don’t really know where they would get those opportunities if they weren’t a part of City Strings,” Payne said.

    Daughter Amelia, 11, has been learning cello at City Strings since she was seven, while Royce, nine, has been learning the violin there since he was six. Payne said she enrolled Amelia in private cello lessons last year after seeing that she was “really into it.”

    “But we wouldn’t have been able to do private lessons if we didn’t have the access to do the free ones first,” Payne said, adding that Amelia gets to use the instruments she receives from City Strings for her private lessons.

    What began with just 12 students and one instructor today builds community for 11 instructors and over 100 students. Looking forward, Israel said she hopes the organization can expand its reach even further.