BEYOND THE YARD

In April of 1988, the Cambridge Human Rights Commission planned a special public hearing to address racism in the city of Cambridge and to provide and publicize resources for victims. The hearing was in response to multiple complaints of minorities being taken advantage of by landlords, or stopped on the street and asked for identification by the Cambridge Police Department.

For students of color at Harvard, who walked the city’s streets and frequented its restaurants, this type of discrimination was nothing new.

“At that time, you know, you would have trouble getting a cab,” said David G. Latimore ‘88, a former director of Harvard’s Afro-American Cultural Center, which was slowly disbanded as the BSA assumed its duties. “Comments were made, racial epithets hurled.”

Walker recalled an incident in which she and a group of black friends were made to wait to enter a restaurant in Cambridge, even as waiters seated numerous groups white patrons who walked in after Walker. She and her friends decided to leave the restaurant.

Johnson remembered another time when he and his roommate, Darryl A. Parson ’87, were walking back to Leverett from a friend’s room in the Harvard-Radcliffe Quadrangle late one evening. The pair noticed that a police car was following them for no apparent reason.

Though they attempted to ignore it at first, Johnson and his roommate decided to run when they reached the end of their street.

“We heard the screeching of tires,” Johnson said, and shortly after the two entered their dorm, the two policemen knocked on their door.

“Why’d you run?” they were asked, to which Johnson responded, “Why’d you follow us?”

“You looked suspicious,” the policemen answered.

GROWING CONVERSATIONS

Amid this tension, Harvard was stepping up its efforts to recruit minority students in its incoming classes. In 1983, Harvard admitted a record number of black students for the Class of 1987. The following year, 6.3 percent of incoming freshmen were black.

“We were probably the second wave of having significant numbers of black students on campus,” Parson said.

And as Harvard’s student body grew increasingly diverse, dialogue on the subject of racial attitudes was becoming more commonplace.

“It was a time where there were lots of conversations centered around race,” Latimore said. “It was an environment particularly in the African-American community where you had a number of vocal, vibrant students that were undeterred.”