Katherine Massey, a late 1980s resident of Massachusetts, was fed up with the state property that was always overgrown on her street. She wrote a letter to Governor Henry Curry Street Block Club letterhead, which resulted in it being cleared up.
Massey was the one to know that the letterhead and block club were her creations, and that she was the sole “club” member.
It was the type of advocacy Massey (72) was known for.
U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins said that “She was the mayor of every neighborhood she lived in.” He is one of many elected officials who joined friends, family, and former coworkers at Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church to celebrate her life.
Massey was one of the 10 Black victims of a body armour-wearing white gunman who attacked shoppers and workers at Tops Friendly Market, a neighborhood in Buffalo that is dominated by Black residents. Federal authorities are investigating the incident as a hate crime. Three other people were also injured.
Payton Gendron (18 years old), Conklin’s alleged gunman has been arrested and charged with murder. He is currently being held without bail.
Family members approached Massey’s open casket just before the funeral service began, pulling off their facemasks and bowing down to her.
Massey, in reflections published in funeral program, stated that she considers herself “a single parent with 35,000 adopt children attending Buffalo’s public school system”. She also recounted how she rented a broccoli costume and leopard gloves and sunglasses to perform a rap song at one school’s student health assembly.
Massey was a 40-year employee of Blue Cross Blue Shield. She retired in 2011. In January 2020, Massey wrote to her family that she felt her death was imminent. She said that she looked just like her mother after two people told her so.
She wrote, “I take it as a sign that my time here is over,”
She wrote, “I told Patti to not let me be a wimp during my time and I believe that she will,” “And don’t let any of you be wimps!” !”
Massey, who used to write for the Buffalo Challenger, and Buffalo Criterion newspapers wrote a letter last May to The Buffalo News addressing “escalating violence in Buffalo and other major U.S. towns” and calling for “extensive federal action and legislation.”
“Current pursued solutions primarily inspired by mass murders — namely universal background checks, banning assault weapons — effectively exclude the sources our city’s gun problem,” reads the letter. “Illegal handguns are the main culprits via state gun trafficking.”
The week will see additional funerals for victims.
Roberta Drury (32 years old), was the youngest victim. She was remembered for being friendly, kind, and bright-eyed. She moved to Buffalo 10 years ago to care for her brother, who was fighting leukemia.
“There are no words that fully express the depth of this tragedy,” Friar Nicholas Spano of Assumption Church, stated during the funeral service in Syracuse.
