In 1922, 145 Harvard first-years, guided by agroup of white upperclassmen, signed a petitionprotesting Lowell's prejudicial policy.

"If any young man should decline to comebecause of this prejudice against some possiblecomrade, I would say that the college was well ridof so narrow minded a youth," said one outragedgraduate of the policy.

By the next year the Harvard Board ofOverseers, which included future presidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, unanimously overruledLowell's exclusion of blacks from first-yeardorms. The reversal was intended, according to theBoard, as an appeal to the ideal of "equalopportunity for all, regardless of race orreligion."

Over the course of the next 70 years, clashesconcerning the function of race on campus haveexpanded to include scholarly debate and broadsocial activism. In the 1960s, the Afro-AmericanStudies Department was created, attracting suchluminaries as Professor of Afro-American Studiesand History Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Professorof Afro-American Studies and Philosophy K. AnthonyAppiah and W.E.B. DuBois Professor of theHumanities Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Now, unlike in previous generations, studentsat the College describe being black at Harvard asmore of an individual experience.

"I definitely know that every person is not thesame," says Mark A. Price '99, the president ofthe Black Men's Forum, "Taking part in the blackcommunity, attending black parties, sitting in the`black table' gives me a different collegeexperience than other people. But that is only onepart of the college experience."

Ernest J. Wilson III, who entered Harvard in1966 at what may be considered the height of theAmerican Civil Rights movement, set out to createan active social life for himself from day one.Wilson eventually joined the Harvard Lampoon, TheCrimson, the Fly Club and, by senior year, waselected Class Marshal.

Wilson, now a professor of political science atthe University of Michigan, is optimisticconcerning the future of black students atHarvard. Although Wilson acknowledged in a recentessay the difficulties of dealing with stereotypeson campus, he emphasized the importance ofindividual action and initiative.

"Whites acted as if we were a black tabula rasaready to be filled with New England education andhigh culture," said Wilson, "[But] we changedHarvard as Harvard changed us."

In contrast, today, with less of theinstitutional racism faced by Du Bois and Wilson,you can come to Harvard and just be a Harvardstudent, according to Price. "Being Black doesn'tnecesarily affect your Harvard career, only if youelect to have a particular black experience," saysPrice.

Early black Radcliffe students such as CarolineBond Day '19 faced the challenge of being black inwhat was virtually a white woman's academic world.

Today, according to Fraser, any remnants of theracism day encountered are subtle and, althoughthey may linger, Fraser was optimistic that suchprejudice is diminishing.

This article relied on sources drawn fromthe anthology "Blacks at Harvard: A DocumentaryHistory of African American Experience at Harvardand Radcliffe."