A Staunch Advocate for Divestment

Like Figaro, the titular character in Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville,” Lawrence E. Adjah ’06 is a jack-of-all-trades.

In addition to running a hair-cutting business, Adjah is an All-Ivy League triple-jumper and until last month served as president of the Black Students Association (BSA).

In March, Adjah joined the cast of characters pressing Harvard to sell its stake in PetroChina, the Beijing-based oil firm with links to the Sudanese government. At a brainstorming session in Adams House, Adjah and 20 other undergraduates formed the United Front for Divestment, a group modeled after a similar student-led coalition that protested Harvard’s financial ties to South Africa’s apartheid government in the early 1980s.

With a theatrical flair fit for Rossini, Adjah led a mock funeral procession through campus dining halls on April 3 to dramatize the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. The following morning, student protesters converged on Loeb House at the eastern edge of the Yard, as Harvard’s Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR)—which makes the final call in matters of divestiture—met inside.

Unbeknownst to the protesters, the CCSR’s three members already had voted to sell Harvard’s stake in PetroChina. And it fell to Adjah to announce the decision to the crowd.

Adjah’s speech to campus divestment advocates was the climactic moment of his presidency—a triumphant finale to a tenure that started on a sour first note.

In the first round of the BSA presidential elections last April, Adjah and Zachary D. Raynor ’05 tied with 63 votes apiece. But an outgoing board member claimed that his fellow officers had improperly counted ballots to prevent Raynor from winning outright. Mired in controversy, the group held two more votes—both of which yielded wide margins in Adjah’s favor.

In true track star fashion, Adjah hit the ground running.

When Adjah took over, “the BSA was at a point where its membership was disillusioned and doubtful of its purpose,” according to Helen Ogbara ’04-’05, president emeritus of the Association of Black Harvard Women. But she adds that Adjah “had clear goals for the BSA. He stuck to them and he made them happen.”

He secured a pledge from the investment bank Merrill Lynch to donate $10,000 annually to the BSA, with half of that going toward a tuition scholarship for a member of the group.

The BSA’s career fair featured only five employers in 2002 and was nonexistent in 2003, but Adjah revived the event last October, drawing 30 recruiters—including Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, and Sony.

The BSA orchestrated a campus voter registration effort last fall and sponsored a series of events to publicize Black History Month in February—including a showcase of student performances that filled MIT’s Kresge Auditorium.

That same month, the first-ever BSA formal drew 250 students to the Sheraton Commander.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

Last month, Crimson columnist Jason L. Lurie ’05 slammed the BSA as well as other racial and ethnic groups for encouraging “self-segregation” among the student body. In response, the BSA organized a campus-wide forum, with participants rallying to the defense of multiculturalism.

The meeting came just days before Adjah handed over the reins of the BSA to Nneka C. Eze ’07, who—in a marked departure from last year’s antagonistic elections—ran for the presidency unopposed.

Adjah says that he is enjoying his newfound emeritus status. He looks forward to resuscitating his barber business, which has taken a back seat to his presidential duties.

But even as Eze takes over, Adjah remains an active presence in the organization.

Whereas the fictional Figaro stirs chaos in the house of Count Almaviva, Adjah has helped the BSA make strides towards stability.

He is helping the BSA build an endowment of its own, starting with a recently-secured $5,000 donation from the Boston Consulting Group, a longtime corporate sponsor.

And he is conducting negotiations on the group’s behalf with several companies that have expressed interest in publishing a “Black Students’ Guide to Getting into Harvard.”

Adjah says he will write the last chapter of the book, on “what to expect when you get here.”

“Lawrence is driven and has a deep love for the BSA which shows in his undying commitment to it,” says Senait Tesfai ’07, the group’s political action chair.

The applause from Adjah’s opener has yet to subside, but he has already moved on to his second act.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.