1995 Gloria Fox Massachusetts House of Representatives

Gloria Lavera Fox (March 18, 1942 – November 11, 2024) was an American politician who was a member of the

Massachusetts House of Representatives The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the State legislature (United States), state legislature of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 counties each divided into ...

for the 7th Suffolk District. Fox represented the 7th Suffolk District from 1987 until her retirement in 2016.

Early life

Fox was born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

on March 18, 1942. Raised as a foster child, Fox attended Boston and Everett public schools. She also completed the MIT Community Fellows program.

Political career

Fox first ran for the 7th Suffolk seat in 1984, losing a write-in campaign against six-term incumbent and Democratic nominee Doris Bunte. Fox ran for the seat again in 1986, when Bunte announced her retirement from the legislature. Fox won the three-way Democratic primary and also the general election, where she was unopposed. Fox faced two challengers in the 2012 primaries, her first contested primary race since 1994. Fox served on the Joint Committee on Housing as vice chair, the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, the House Committee on Steering, Policy and Scheduling, and the House Committee on Ways and Means. Her legislative work on criminal justice reform, child welfare and foster care, redistricting, Election Day voter registration, and eliminating

health disparities Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have consistently been deprived of these three determinants are significantly disadvantaged from health inequit ...

in communities of color. When Fox retired from her seat in 2016, she was the longest serving woman in the

Great and General Court The Massachusetts General Court, formally the General Court of Massachusetts, is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts located in the state capital of Boston. The name "General Court" is a holdover from the earliest days of ...

. Fox was a member of the Boston Delegation of the Massachusetts Legislature, the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators, the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. Her papers are now held at the

State Library of Massachusetts The State Library of Massachusetts in Boston, Massachusetts was established in 1826 and "supports the research and information needs of government, libraries, and people through ... services and access to a comprehensive repository of state docu ...

. In 2009, Fox came under scrutiny for a visit she made to the

Old Colony Correctional Center Old Colony Correctional Center is a Massachusetts Department of Correction men's prison in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The medium security facility is located in a plot of land in the Bridgewater Correctional Complex with the Bridgewater Stat ...

Bridgewater, Massachusetts Bridgewater is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city's population was 28,633. The historic town center of Bridgewater is located approximately south of Boston, Massachusetts and approxima ...

. While visiting inmate Darrell Jones, Fox was accompanied by Jones' girlfriend, Joanna Marinova. Fox was criticized for bringing Marinova into an unsecured area through her legislative privileges. Fox responded by denying any wrongdoing, and that she was unaware that Marinova was Jones' girlfriend. On March 19, 2014 a jury found the ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American conservative daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarde ...

'' liable in the libel suit brought by Marinova, citing the fact that no sexual acts occurred while Fox and Marinova visited the prison, as the ''Herald'' had reported. Fox voted against casino gambling in Massachusetts, and opposed a 'three-strikes' bill that passed through the legislature and was signed by Governor

Deval Patrick Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was the first African Americans, African-American Governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic Pa ...

Awards

In 2011, Fox received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the

National Black Caucus of State Legislators The National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) is an American political organization composed of African Americans elected to state legislatures in the United States and its territories. Background NBCSL was founded in 1977 after a gro ...

for her community activism.

Personal life

As a single mother, she raised two sons in the Whittier Street Housing Development in Roxbury. She worked as a community organizer before entering politics. She was active in the fight to stop the Southwest Expressway. Fox died November 11, 2024, at the age of 82.

References

External links