In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited an unprecedented 18 “Negro” boys as an early form of affirmative action. Four years later, they would graduate as African Americans. Some 50 years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, would begin to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives and what their time at Harvard meant. Garrett and his partner, Jeanne Ellsworth, recount how these 18 youths broke new ground, with ramifications that extended far past the iconic Yard. By the time they were seniors, they would have demonstrated against national injustice and grappled with the racism of academia, had dinner with Malcolm X, and fought alongside their African national classmates for the right to form a Black students’ organization.