Scondras has advocated a complete stoppage to condominium conversions, a stance that Roosevelt has called too extreme.

Differences in Style

Roosevelt, the great grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1870, and great grandnephew of Franklin Delano Roosevelt '04, marched from a Washington, D.C., prep school through Harvard and then through the Law School, graduating this spring.

From the start of his undergraduate career, Roosevelt threw himself into state politics, working for then-city council candidate Lawrence S. DiCarn '71, managing the campaign of then-school committee candidate John O'Bryant in 1977, and then working on President Jimmy Carter's domestic policy staff.

Along the way, Roosevelt befriended Alan Brinkley, Dunalke Associate Professor of History, who was then a teaching fellow.

"He was deeply involved in politics throughout Harvard." Brinkley said yesterday. "But he didn't strike me as someone who was pure politics. He was interested in politics because of what he thought politics could do."

Brinkley recounted a story about a younger Roosevelt's early involvement with the problem of racism.

"He was invited to go to a dancing school in Washington. And when he was in eight or ninth grade he showed up at Mrs. Shippins [dance school] and demanded to know why there were no Blacks there," Brinkley said. "She threw him out."