The core group of Law School organizers, made up of Jamin “Jamie” B. Raskin ’83, Michael T. Anderson ’83, Lois P. Murphy ’84, and Granholm facilitated ‘one-a-day protests,’ which functioned like sit-ins, in front of Massachusetts Hall.

“Every generation of students has a political calling,” Raskin said, “And ours was trying to get Harvard to disengage from corporate complicity with apartheid.”

Anderson said that Granholm’s involvement—because of her reputation on campus—lent legitimacy to the movement.

“Jennifer actually gave the divestment movement a lot of credibility because people knew she wasn’t some crazy radical—that she came to it from a moral background,” Anderson said. “Certainly she was not ideologically a leftist so much as just a very earnest and moral person.”

During her time at Harvard, Granholm camped out in front of Massachusetts Hall to defend her cause.

This was only one example of the non-violent confrontation that the organizers incorporated into their protests.

“Jamie came up with the phrase ‘difficult but not impossible,’ [a] presence but not an obstruction,” Murphy said.

Granholm said that the kind of non-violent yet confrontational model that the divestment movement followed was, and still is, highly effective.

“It’s the symbol that there are things more important than one’s self, it’s a symbol that you’re willing to be physically uncomfortable and confrontational,” Grandholm said. “You have to be seen in order for the message to be seen, whether it was protesting at my house or at the steps of the capital, those messages penetrate—those resonate.”

‘NOT DONE YET’

After holding her first elected position as editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, at the time the largest journal at Harvard, Granholm went on to graduate with honors.

After graduation, Granholm clerked for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit. She later became the first female Attorney General and the first female governor of Michigan.

Raskin said that participating in the divestment movement at the Law School helped the group of young activists sharpen their advocacy skills.

“We were constantly bringing in the ideas we were learning about in school into the movement,” he said.

But nearly 25 years after first applying law to politics, Granholm said that she was done running for office, but not finished serving.

“I’m not done yet, I can tell you that,” she said.

—Staff writer Caroline M. McKay can be reached at carolinemckay@college.harvard.edu.