Tarik Lucas has been a City Councilor from Ward 2 since his special election win in March, 2021 to fill the seat of the newly elected congressman, Jake Auchincloss.
Born in Malden, Tarik grew up in Brookline and has lived in Newtonville for fourteen years. Since 2008, Tarik has been a Harvard University Press royalties specialist. “I started my new job on November 10th, the Monday after Barack Obama was elected President,” he said. In 2009, he moved to Newtonville, where he has an apartment in a remodeled 1865 Second Empire house. His neighborhood meets the fifteen-minute walking criteria to markets, drug stores, ice cream shops, pizza stores, take out places, dry cleaners, coffee shops, restaurants, and a diverse community of neighbors in a diverse array of housing. And he wanted a place with green space!
Community activism may well be part of Tarik’s DNA. His maternal great grandmother, who was born on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean (and birthplace of Alexander Hamilton). She settled in Roxbury, where she was an active and founding member of the St. James African Orthodox Church, a Boston Historic Landmark. It was a haven for people from Nevis and St. Kitts. Built in 1910, the church still stands on Cedar Street in Roxbury, and a stained-glass window dedicated to Tarik’s great grandmother is still intact. Recognizing the significance of his roots, Tarik is a participating member of the Newton Coalition of Black Residents and the recently formed Massachusetts Black Lawmakers Roundtable.
As he became more engaged in his neighborhood, Tarik joined Neighbors for a Better Newtonville, where he was encouraged to run for the Newtonville Area Council (NAC) — one of four in the city. He won a seat on the nine-member locally elected committee and was chosen vice president. In that role, Tarik led an initiative to develop a “Washington Street Survey,” asking residents in the NAC catchment area to fill out a questionnaire about their views of development in Newtonville. The NAC sent out 11,000 postcards requesting local participation: 2,500 people responded. Most indicated that they wanted buildings on Washington Street not to exceed four stories and be mixed use, and to include open space and parking. He carries those ideas with him to the City Council, where he is a member of both the Land Use and Public Safety & Transportation Committees.
Tarik also was an active campaigner against the proposed change to the Newton Charter, which would have eliminated all eight locally elected ward councilors. “I worked hard to save democracy in Newton,” he said of the “NO” campaign’s success. In 2018, Tarik applied for, and Mayor Fuller appointed him to the Newtonville Historic District Commission. “Historic preservation is my preservation,” he explained. And, in 2019, he ran for City Council from Ward 2 but lost. “I did not win, but I did not give up,” he said. And in the 2021 special election, he did win and is planning to run for re-election in November.
As a frequent high school basketball referee, Tarik credits his training with preparing him for the City Council. He compares refereeing to City Council encounters “where one side is positive about, and the other side is negative” about a decision. He says he’s “learned to keep a level head.”
Assessing his fourteen years as an increasingly engaged resident, Tarik says,” Newton’s been very good to me.’