A number of local, political, and judicial figures attended the speech, including Cambridge City Council member Kenneth E. Reeves and Joyce L. Alexander, a federal court judge in the District of Massachusetts and the first African American woman in history to become a U.S. Magistrate Judge.

Deval L. Patrick '78, former assistant attorney general for civil rights during the Clinton administration and a potential Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate who also attended the talk last night, echoed Ogletree’s call for change.

“We need a more inclusive, more vital, and more vibrant democracy than we have right now,” he said.

Ogletree admitted that he was not the first to suggest a departure from the two-party system; he said he was present when the idea was raised at the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Indiana.

Reeves, the Cambridge city councilor, publicly thanked Ogletree for participating in the forum, which he called a “keep hope alive meeting.”

Afterward, Bryan C. Barnhill ’08 approached Ogletree to ask how black leaders should address the problems facing African Americans.

“We can talk about constructing something, we can talk about creating some sort of program or platform for change, but what is that? What are we going to fight for?” Barnhill said.

—Staff writer Andrew C. Esensten can be reached at esenst@fas.harvard.edu.