Thomas I. Atkins

Thomas Irving Atkins (March 2, 1939 in Elkhart, Indiana – June 27, 2008 in Brooklyn) was an African American attorney and politician who served as a member of the Boston City Council and General Counsel of the NAACP.

Atkins was born on March 2, 1939, in Elkhart, Indiana to a Pentecostal minister and a domestic. As a child, he overcame a bout of polio. He was the first black student body president at Elkhart High School.

In 1960, he was elected student body president at Indiana University. He was the school's first African American student body president as well as the first African American student body president in the Big Ten. That same year he married Sharon Soash, a 1960 graduate of Indiana University who served as his campaign manager when he ran for student body president. The couple had to marry in Michigan because Indiana prohibited interracial marriage. Atkins graduated from Indiana in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in political science. In 1963 he earned a master's in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University. In 1969 he graduated from Harvard Law School.

While at Harvard, Atkins served as executive secretary of Boston's NAACP office.

Atkins was first elected to the Boston City Council in 1967. The day following the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Atkins convinced Mayor Kevin White not to cancel a James Brown concert that was to be held that evening at the Boston Garden and helped negotiate an agreement between White and Brown to have the concert televised by WGBH-TV. White and Atkins hoped that televising the concert would keep angry and frustrated teenagers at home and prevent the looting and rioting that was occurring in other cities. The concert has been credited with preventing riots from breaking out in Boston.

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