During Bragg's year at the helm, the BSA workedwith groups that are rarely its close allies. Theassociation co-sponsored an event will theBisexual, Gay and Lesbian Students Association andheld several discussions with Hillel.
Bragg worked cooperatively with Harvardadministrators, serving as a speaker for anEpps-engineered showing of a film on Black "Liberators" who freed Jews from concentrationcamps.
Bragg's year provided a stark contrast both tothe protesters of 1969 and to the presidentialterms before and after his. His predecessor,Zaheer R. Ali '94, helped bring controversialspeakers like Jeffries to campus and sponsoredanti-administration broadsides with titles like,"On the Harvard Plantation" and "The PeculiarInstitution."
This fall, Clarke provoked controversy with aletter in which she quoted academics who linkedmelanin to "greater mental, physical and spiritualabilities." She also organized a rally against thebook The Bell Curve and provoked a peacefulprotest from Hillel for inviting Wellesleyprofessor Tony Martin to campus.
Ali, who will spend next year working for theNation of Islam, says Bragg was always a force forreconciliation among groups, even before he waspresident.
"He was very conciliatory and did his best tostay in the middle, stay in the mainstream," Alisays.
While Bragg's peacemaking won plaudits fromClarke as well as other campus groups and Epps,the BSA voted strongly for a crop of untriedfirst-year students after his year ended.
the first-years promised activism, andattendance at BSA meetings swelled by about athird during Clarke's term.
Clarke applauds Bragg's work and leadership.During her year, however, "overall the BSAincreased its activity level along political,cultural and social lines. There was more activismand generation of awareness...People were a bigmore aware of the organization's presence."
Ali divides BSA leaders into two camps, theintegrationist and the autonomist, placing Braggin the former and himself in the latter.
Bragg himself says he "does like to sit down atthe table and get a broad range" of opinions.
"I definitely believe in autonomy, but maybeI'm more of a pragmatist," he says. "We're atHarvard University. Are we really going to have anautonomous Black community when we receive moneyfrom the Undergraduate Council?"
A Legacy
The Bragg family home on Striver's Row issituated between two other historic Harlemthorough-fares, which are named after Adam ClaytonPowell Jr. and Frederick Douglass.
The street names are a good reminder of thepast political and cultural potency of the areaoften called the "capital of Black America."Powell, the only Black member of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives in the middle of the century andperhaps Harlem's most famous politician, waspastor of Bragg's own Abyssinian Baptist Church.
"Old ladies from church still love