Harvard Student Body Elected a Black Man as President for the First Time

The junior government major is excited to build the future of the university

Twenty-year-old Noah Harris of Hattiesburg, Mississippi has become the first Black man to be elected student body president at Harvard University.

Following his win on November 12, the junior government major told the Hattiesburg American: “Especially with everything that went on this summer with the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, all the protests that went on in this moment of racial reckoning in this country, this is a major statement by the Harvard student body to entrust a Black man with such an unprecedented moment in its history.”

Only two other Black students have been chosen to lead Harvard’s Undergraduate Council — known colloquially as “the UC” — since it was established in 1982: Cary Gabay in 1994 and Fentrice Driskell in 2001. Because of changes made to the UC’s election protocol in 1995, Harris is the first Black man to have been elected into the role by the entire student body.