Gloria L. Fox, the longest-serving Black woman representative in the Massachusetts State Legislaturewho died last month at age 82, was rememberedTuesday in a funeral service at the Charles Street AME Church as a superwoman, a legend, and a lifelong advocate of Boston’s Black communities.
“She was the center of gravity, with everyone swirling around her,” Mayor Michelle Wu told hundreds of guests in the historic Grove Hall church. “If you wanted anything to do with Roxbury, you had to go through Rep. Fox.”
The hourslong service was filled with memories of Fox’s steadfast humility. Former state Representative Byron Rushing, who served alongside Fox in the Legislative Black Caucus, said his late colleague is part of a growing group of African American lawmakers who “who love this community.”
Every morning, “her prayer probably went something like this: ‘Let me find someone I should help,’” Rushing said.
As the funeral attendees remember Fox’s contributions, Rushing said it’s crucial they don’t forget stories of her unwavering commitment to Roxbury’s Black community. “We have cannot leave today without pledging to tell that story,” he said.
ToWu, who said she first met Fox in 2012 at a campaign event for Senator Elizabeth Warren at Hibernian Hall,Fox’s long legacy is still seen in Boston today, from spearheading the Whittier Street Health Center to securing a neighborhood Boston Public Library branch.
“Somehow she managed to be everywhere at once, and you could feel when she entered the room,” Wu said.
Hundreds of attendees rubbed shoulders in the pews and bowed their heads in prayer, as the Rev. Miniard Culpepper of Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church dedicated his grace to a woman who “fought for a better life for all of us.”
Fox was born in Boston in 1942, and attended both Boston and Everett public schools as a foster child, according to her obituary. She went on to finish the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Community Fellows program, which pairs local organizing with higher learning.
While raising two sons in the Whittier Street public housing development in Roxbury, the single mother entered the world of community organizing. She volunteered for the late Rev. Michael E. Haynes of Twelfth Baptist Church at the defunct Norfolk House, helping with local youth. She rallied her neighbors to advocate for more centralized health services, helping create the Whittier Street Service Center. She worked with her neighborhood organizers to successfully block the Southwest Expressway Corridor Project that would have split the area into two.
Before entering politics, Fox directed the Action for Boston Community Development’s Roxbury-North Dorchester Area Planning Action Council. There, she oversaw wraparound services such as childcare, workforce development, and job training.
Fox sought elected office in late 1984, when the Massachusetts Legislature’s first Black woman representative, Doris Bunte, gave up her seat to lead the Boston Housing Authority.
Stacey Dunham, Fox’s cousin, said “it was probably the only time I ever saw Gloria nervous.”
She ran an unsuccessful campaign as a write-in candidate in that year’s election, but emerged victorious in a special 1985 election with a 146-vote margin.
Fox held the seat, representing parts of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mission Hill, and the Fenway for more than 30 years. Those who spoke at the funeral service said she championed legislation that addressed health disparities, foster care, criminal justice, and disinvestment, no matter what opposition she faced.
“If her role was to embrace the scenario of a submissive Black woman, Gloria Fox never took the time to study that script,” said the Rev. Gregory Groover Sr. of the Charles Street AME Church. “Her life was about not allowing any man, any rule, any mayor, any speaker in the House, any governor, anyone to control her.”
Joseph “BJ” Fox III, the late representative’s grandson, said he was moved by the packed church, which included members of the Legislative Black Caucus who carried a heart-shaped wreath of white and purple blooms to the pulpit.
“I’ve started to see the superwoman she was,” Joseph Fox III said.
With every spare minute she had, Fox tried to achieve the nearly impossible, said Sincere Allah, the legislator’s grandson. “When I went to bed, she would still be up, and when I got up, she was already up,” he said.
His childhood memories are filled with Fox’s listening of countless constituent voicemails, “individually writing notes, and replying to as many as she could have in a day.” And when he took in the hundreds of people gathered to pay their respects to Fox, those returned calls and kept voicemails added up.
“Everybody meant something to her,” he said.
