By Frederick A. Hurst

Jynai McDonald is running for Springfield’s Ward 4 City Council seat placing her in position to join several other local African American women elected officials who have been playing a significant, if not dominant, political leadership role for the benefit of the African American community and Springfield in general.
32-year-old Jynai is the daughter of Lester McDonald III and Victoria Lewis. Her paternal grandparents migrated to Springfield from Mississippi and North Carolina many years ago. Her maternal grandparents migrated to Springfield from Georgia and South Carolina. Along with the McDonald and Lewis families, she is also connected to the Washington, Redd and Wilkerson families just like so many of our Springfield African-American families are so interconnected. And, like so many of us, Jynai is a product of the distant generation of Southern migrants who escaped to the North for a better life for themselves and their offspring and, by word-of-mouth and happenstance, ended up in Springfield.
Jynai attended the first Milton Bradley K-6 Elementary School class and distinguished herself by winning a contest for designing Milton Bradley’s first yearbook cover. She later attended the Urban League of Springfield’s New Leadership Charter School from the sixth to twelfth grades and after graduation attended Bridgeport University.
Jynai took a break from college after the first semester and it would be a long time and many adventures before she returned to gain her Business Administration degree in June of 2016 from Bay Path University. As part of her educational journey, Jynai also managed to earn a paralegal certificate which involved taking related law courses. And she accomplished all of this while establishing an extensive and impressive employment track record in people-related services and starting a family.
Given the broad reach of her work history, it should be of no surprise to anyone that Jynai became involved in politics. After her brief stint at Bridgeport University, she was hired by Karla Davis as a hair stylist at Hair Connections for about 18 months and then worked under the tutelage of Dawn Leaks as a youth advisor at the Springfield Urban League. She next moved to the YMCA as Director of Birch Park Youth and Teen Center and ran a “Safe Summer Streets” program out of the North End Youth Teen Center and after that she worked at the Children’s Study Home as a shift supervisor and later for the Job Core as a residential advisor after which she finally returned to earn her college degree in Business Administration at Bay Path University while continuing her employment journey.
While at Bay Path, Jynai interned, again under Dawn Leeks, at the American Red Cross as Director of Disaster and Public Affairs and Internal Relations. She eventually moved to the Hampden County Career Center in Holyoke as a contract worker for the sheriff as a re-entry specialist and job developer in Springfield and, just before graduating, finished out her college employment career as Western Massachusetts Regional Manager for Training Resources of America running an adult ESL program, a young parents’ program and a SNAP Packs for Work program.
Jynai is currently employed by SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local 509 as Family Childcare coordinator and leads the department in organizing for family and child care providers throughout Massachusetts and, until the pandemic hit, she traveled throughout the state providing training and leadership development skills to up to 2400 providers.
Jynai has three lovely kids, eleven-year-old son Judah and seven-year-old twins, a girl, Rizolli, and a boy, Rubin. She was recently married and the family lives in a Mason Square home on Sycamore Street which she purchased. Her father, Lester McDonald III worked at FedEx for 17 years and her well-known, tennis-professional grandfather, Lester McDonald Jr., still occasionally travels the country playing on the pro tennis circuit.
I remember Lester Jr. when we were very young, hard-working kids roaming the neighborhood looking for ways to earn honest money. We were hard workers back in the days when tennis was the last thing on our minds and both of us carried the work ethic into adulthood. At some point Lester took a liking to tennis and, as an adult, ran a special inner-city program called STOP in our local parks. Jynai is looking forward to helping her grandfather revive the STOP program and as part of it, she intends to push for the revival of the old tennis court on Acorn Street next to the Girls Club Family Center. If you don’t remember it, you won’t be able to see it now because it has been neglected and overgrown with brush and grass for many years. Jynai’s grandmother, Dorothy McDonald is also well known in the community for her activism.
Jynai ran twice for a seat on Springfield’s City Council. The first time she ran for an at-large seat and lost by a whisper. The second time she lost the Ward 4 seat by the measure of duplicity by her opponent but, again, only by a whisper. But she courageously chose to run again. In her own words:
“I knew I had to run again. The residents of Ward 4 deserve a Councilor who will be present at meetings and an advocate with clear vision for neighborhoods and businesses – as opposed to a Councilor who refers to the area they represent as ‘ghetto…’ Ward 4 deserves a candidate in their corner that will listen and bring their voices to City Hall…. I vow to do just that…. There will always be work to do but Ward 4 is a vibrant and critical part of Springfield. With Mason Square’s historic sites, colleges, and other rich history, the district has a
lot to offer and plenty of economic
potential.”
Jynai reminds me of Stacey Abrams, the powerful Black woman who just barely lost the race for the Governor of Georgia and subsequently delivered a powerful and breathtaking speech at the Democratic National Convention and then returned to Georgia to organize voters for an effort that led to two election victories of Democratic Senate candidates that resulted in Democratic control of the United States Senate. And now she is gearing up for a replay and might soon become Georgia’s first Black Governor.
Like Stacey Abrams, Jynai just refuses to quit. She is currently serving as Vice Chairwoman of the Springfield Technical Community College Board of Trustees among her many other volunteer accomplishments, which include serving as the very capable and reliable Community Calendar Editor for Point of View. She is one among the many strong Black women who have, through the ages, selflessly offered their services to their community and far beyond. We should not waste her.
The one thing I know with certainty after coming to know Jynai McDonald: She is smart, tough, personable, fearless and the type of person who will work for the people…who will serve rather than exploit her community. She is not alone. But she is a welcome gem, among an altogether too-rare species, who has earned her way to leadership. Expect her to soon be serving the entire city
of Springfield as its Ward 4 City
Councilor. ■