Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. – a Personal Tribute from ALI’s Founding Chair Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Professor Charles Ogletree (left) and Founding Chair Rosabeth Moss Kanter (right) participating in an ALI session in 2011
Professor Charles Ogletree’s personal email address was “nochuck.” Known always by the nickname Tree, and decidedly not Chuck, he knew how he wanted to be treated, and he accorded others the same respect and dignity. I recall walking into his house on Martha’s Vineyard one summer and meeting the Cambridge police chief, with whom he had struck an agreement and a friendship after the police mistakenly arrested Prof. Henly Louis (Skip) Gates for seeming to break into his own house. (Skip immediately retained Tree as his lawyer.) The whole episode revealed Tree’s character. To be a fierce advocate for justice speaking up about wrongs, and at the same time make friends so easily, and with a police chief, is a rare combination.
I had known him for many years in a casual way, but ALI brought us even closer. In the winter of 2006, we had a chance encounter on an airplane. As we chatted, I told him about the idea for ALI which I was then hatching with Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria. He expressed great enthusiasm, having recently founded the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at the Law School, and also great optimism that we could pull it off. So, with my colleagues’ agreement, I invited him to be among the first faculty co-chairs. He energetically paved the way with then HLS Dean (now Supreme Court Jusice) Elena Kagan and helped ensure that ALI would attract diverse top leaders interested in societal improvement and social justice. The inaugural 2009 cohort was a tribute to that ideal—racially and globally diverse. And the core faculty from around the university and across schools were able to get to know him, as he steadfastly attended our planning and board meetings.
Tree was an essential ambassador for ALI, contributing to every aspect. A great collaborator, we co-wrote with Howard Koh an HBS case on civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks, who started late in life the Children’s Health Forum to reduce lead poisoning – a good model for what ALI fellows might be able to do. His brilliant book, With All Deliberate Speed, about 50 years of the aftermath of the Supreme Court school desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education, became a mainstay of the ALI curriculum, because it showed what social movements and the law could and couldn’t do, and made the case for social entrepreneurs founding organiztions that improved opportunities, an essential part of the justice equiation.
He tapped a vast network of contacts for major events, such as our first deep dive on Poverty, Justice, and Jobs, held at HLS with a stunning set of panels. He could reach top leaders instantly on his ubiquitous cell phone, and they always seemed available to him. We’d be planning a session, and he’d issue invitations immediately. At the same time as he cherished students, especially Black students (and later the Black ALI Fellows who named their group after him), and he went out of his way to teach and mentor them, including by his famous Saturday Schools. One year I joined them when he brought incoming Black first-years to Martha’s Vineyard for a weekend retreat on a balmy September day—he could also end the weekend by going fishing, a big passion. In fact, he won the Vineyard striped bass and bluefish tournament multiple times. He would leave big pieces of fish in the freezer of his shared house with the door unlocked so that friends could come in and take fish.
Martha’s Vineyard was an important place for him, as it was for many Black professionals. Via the Law School’s Houston Institute, he ran an annual Vineyard forum to which hundreds flew in, including ALI fellows, with all races on the panels. I spoke from my identity perspective. He had Berry Gordy for a Motown tribute. Another memorable event featured survivors of the Tulsa race massacres, including some who were nearly 100 years old, whom Tree treated with the utmost dignity and introduced with immense pride.
Back in Cambridge for the academic year, he was close to his colleagues at HLS, especially Ron Sullivan and Bill Alford, both former ALI co-chairs. He arranged for an ALI program which we did together for HLS alumni reunions – alumni flocked to him too. His office was on the top floor allegedly for security reasons, but it was always a lively place, and he took visitors to lunch at the faculty dining room with colleagues. But he held supplemental office hours weekly over lunch at Changsho across from HLS, with rotating shifts of local civic leaders, students, and faculty. Always curious, he traveled with ALI fellows and faculty to India and China, Miami and Detroit.
His 60th birthday was celebrated with a large joyous dinner and dancing at the Charles Hotel, where he danced with his devoted wife Pam and his grandchildren, attended by many of the famous people he had taught and mentored. His 63rd birthday was accompanied by news of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and then an exceptional large tribute to him at the Law School as he left the School and a chair was named in his honor, spearheaded by Ted Wells, Ken Frazier, and Ken Chennault, all highly accomplished executives who had benefited from his mentorship. I was privileged to be among those offering tributes. I talked about his many contributions to ALI and, on a less-serious note, reprised the first verse of a quasi-rap song I had written for the dinner celebrating his getting an honorary degree from Wheelock College. He always had a sense of humor, but that day, sadly, the decline was clear.
Charles Ogletree was a tough advocate for justice and, at the same time, always a gracious friend to people of all colors. He was not just admired; he was deeply loved.
RIP, Tree. You are sorely missed.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Arbuckle Professor, Harvard Business School
Founding Chair & Director, Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative (2005-2018)