By Albert H. Cho

When I started at Harvard in the fall of 1998, I never imagined that I would end up as the co-chair of Harvard’s Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender (BGLT) and Supporters Alliance. I found BGLT activism confusing and scary, and I certainly had no intention of becoming publicly involved in an organization whose members were generally assumed to be politically radical homosexuals. After all, queer politics weren’t my problem—they only applied to people who didn’t know how to fit in.

That myopic perspective exploded on Feb. 7, 1999, when queer politics suddenly became a lot more personal. “Did you hear about that crazy kid at MIT who killed himself yesterday?” asked a friend on the way to Annenberg that evening. “He was from your town, so I thought you might have known him.”

It turns out I did. “That crazy kid” was my friend Mike Manley from Tempe, Arizona. Though Mike and I went to different high schools, we met on the local speech and debate circuit, and we started bumping into each other everywhere we went. Mike and I volunteered together at the city museum, served on youth commissions together, talked on the phone and crank-called random Tempeans together. These experiences forged a friendship I valued highly during a period of my life when good friends were hard to find.

Mike was intense and brilliant; he had a persistent devotion to excellence that was unusual by even the most stringent criterion. At the debate camp we attended in Colorado, he worked harder than anyone else and earned its highest recognition, the pretentiously-titled Philosopher King award. Nothing made Mike prouder than to see his efforts rewarded with recognition; he set high standards for himself and usually exceeded them triumphantly.

As a junior in high school, Mike was accepted to MIT and chose there to enroll there the following year, just as I was about to enter Harvard. The summer before we left for Cambridge, Mike and I met several times to talk about what it would be like to leave our homes in Arizona for the gray and distant lands of Harvard and MIT. We swore to stay in touch and help each other handle the pretentious snobs we were sure we’d find.

As the summer ended, we embarked for our new homes. As the general chaos of the first week subsided, I found myself comfortably ensconced within the iron gates of Harvard Yard. Suddenly, everyone I knew—everyone who counted, at least—seemed to live within Harvard’s walls, and my contact with the outside world, including Mike, dwindled to an increasingly intermittent trickle of e-mails.

Then, on Feb. 7, 1999, I heard the news. The day before, Mike had thrown himself from the 15th floor of his MIT dormitory, leaving no note or explanation. After rushing to his room at MIT and meeting some of his friends there, I learned for the first time that Mike was gay.