Outside the Box

It was in his kindergarten classroom that newly re-elected Mayor of Cambridge Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 first knew he was gay. The room’s play area was divided: dolls for girls and teddy bears for boys. The young Reeves was frustrated when he was denied a doll, his toy of choice. “They had to force me to hold a teddy bear,” Reeves says.

Today, there are no rainbow flags flying outside City Hall and no gay pride posters hanging on the walls of the Mayor’s office inside. Instead, the room is adorned with an assortment of paintings and a cluttered desk in the corner.

Reeves is the first gay African-American mayor in the nation, but this cursory description doesn’t quite do this hard-working community activist justice.

AN UNLIKELY MATCH

Reeves transferred to Harvard after his freshman year at Trinity College and remembers his first visit to the Harvard Square of the 1960’s, which back then was teeming with street musicians, Hare Krishna chanters, and “hippies with no shoes sitting on the ground.”

And transferring, it seems, held good fortune. It was at Harvard that Reeves met the love of his life, his partner of 37 years, Gregory A. Johnson ’72.

“Many people think he looks like Superman,” Reeves says. At Harvard, Johnson was a handsome football player, the “least gay man you had ever seen,” Reeves says. It wasn’t love at first sight the night they met in the Eliot dining hall (Reeves was dating someone else at the time), but Johnson’s caring nature struck Reeves.

“His devotion is unrivaled in human beings that I’ve met,” the Mayor says.“I fell in love with his mind...he has never bored me.” Soon after meeting, the two started dating.

Reeves did not hide his interracial relationship with Johnson, who was also his Mather suitemate.

“We lived a very gay life at Harvard in the most unconstrained way,” Reeves says. “I spent all my waking time with him without approval.”

But Reeves was less interested in being a poster child for Harvard’s gay community and more interested in giving back to the Boston community. He and Johnson became particularly close during their work with the Columbia Point Program at the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), but while a small, organized gay student voice developed, Reeves preferred to define himself, rather than be defined by the gay movement.

“The book that’s never been written is how black gay people perceive ourselves to be distinct. The black notion has never been to dress in rainbows,” he says. “It has been a bit more silent.”

AGAINST THE GRAIN

As an undergrad, Reeves focused his activities on race rather than sexuality. The History and Literature concentrator was an active member of PBHA, worked on the Journal of African and African- American Studies, sang in the Glee Club, and was one of the original Kuumba singers. Reeves sang a tenor solo in the first Kuumba performance, and his love for singing has stuck with him (he continues to sing with the Cambridge Community Chorus).

A defining moment for Reeves came when he rallied for an African-American Studies Department. According to Reeves, he and his contemporaries were some of the first black students to be critical of their Ivy League school. Told by professors that such a department could not be considered an authentic academic discipline, Reeves continued lobbying and fought for an Afro Studies Center.

On some issues, Reeves took a more forceful approach. He and his roommate and best friend, Doug Harris ’72 (the two believed they were the personification of Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”) fought for Harvard to divest from investments in Apartheid-era South Africa. When Harris helped coordinate a 1972 occupation of Massachusetts Hall, Reeves joined in the protesting.

Harris did not enter the building, having been arrested once before for a separate protest, but Reeves was one of a handful of students who did. Reeves remembers when the students occupied Mass. Hall, with thousands of students marching around the Yard day and night to make sure the police didn’t arrest them.

THE TROUBLE WITH HARVARD

Though he was happy at school, Reeves was discontented with Harvard’s policies concerning the African-American community. Today, Reeves is critical of Harvard’s involvement in community work, a passion that Reeves pursued both in college and now as mayor.

“I admire academic Harvard, but bureaucratic Harvard and community-member Harvard are sometimes a stretch for me,” he says, noting that PBHA is very involved in the community, but that Harvard tries to take credit for it.

“We have a collective responsibility for ourselves and others,” Reeves says. He says that Cambridge, home of MIT and Harvard, should have the premiere high school in the country, and Harvard should be part of the effort to make it outstanding. In addition to extending the Harvard community into the Cambridge community, Reeves believes Harvard should pay taxes, and argues that the University is not a non-profit.

The Mayor also expressed dismay over the motivations of Harvard students in helping the community, saying that he has met some superficial students who become caricatures of themselves, volunteering only in an effort to build resumes.

“With a second cup of coffee I could imitate them,” the Mayor joked. He then straightened his posture and screeched in a high-pitched voice, “Hi! My name is Jess Brown and I really, really, really like public service!”

Reeves isn’t afraid to be brutally honest, and this trait has helped propel his career as a leader.

“He negotiated [becoming the first openly gay black Mayor] in a way that seems effortless, and I admire that,” says close friend and Quincy House Resident Tutor Timothy P. McCarthy ’93. And though Massachusetts is the first state to allow gay marriage, Reeves has elected not to marry, at least not just yet.

“None of our being together is the political statement,” he says. “We don’t want a political circus wedding.”

As always, Reeves isn’t looking to make a big hoopla. He’s just doing his job.