"I think I've gotten more cynical over the years," she says. "A lot of the arguments for not sitting in were that we would lose this, we would lose that, but I don't feel that we have much to lose anyway."

Nelson's actions during the debate over the Confederate flag last year were the best example of how she has used her position of authority both to teach student and change Harvard. Last winter, a white student in Kirkland House placed a Confederate flag in her window. After a few days of protest against the flag, another white protest against the flag, another white student in Cabot House put a flag in his window. A Black student in Cabot then placed a swastika in her window.

Nelson and Daniel J. Libenson '92, chair of Harvard/Radcliffe Hillel, wrote a joint letter to The Crimson condemning the flags. The BSA, led by Nelson, and other groups conducted a series of eat-ins in Kirkland an Cabot Houses in an effort to explain to other students why the flags were painful and hateful to Blacks and Jews. At the same time Nelson led the eat-ins, she met with administrators and tried to persuade them to use the University's racial harassment guidelines to force the students to remove the Confederate flags.

"What we tried to do last year was to educate people about why this is a hurtful symbol," Nelson says. "It was educative in the sense that you can't assume that all student know [what the flag means to Blacks], and it was activist in trying to get the administration to do something,...which failed."

What impressed Nelson's admirers during the flag controversy was that she was able simultaneously to put pressure on the administration, and educate students, and to maintain communications between administrators and student groups.

Says Jurij Striedter, master of Cabot House. "As master, it is crucial to have individual students like Mecca who can fight for the rights of groups that are disadvantaged and at the same time accept others as individuals and mediate with other groups,"

"During the flag debate..Mecca was able to speak up for group without breaking up the communication," Striedter says. Streidter awarded Nelson a Master's Citation at the Cabot senior dinner in recognition of her efforts to improve race relations during the flag debate and throughout her time at Harvard.

The "Spade Kicks" and Confederate flag controversies have convinced Nelson that the University needs to regulate hate speech to prevent increasingly frequent racial harassment. She argues that University policy restrictingracial harassment should allow the administrationto limit certain speech that is hurtful tostudents.

"Somehow this free speech thing overrideseverything, and I think that's very dangerous forthe community," she says. "it's another source ofour race relations problems. A lot of students,particularly Black students, are feelings, arehurt, it our feelings are hurt, it doesn't reallymatter in the end."

Nelson's academic work has in many waysmirrored her activism. She began as a Governmentconcentrator, moved into History, and Literature,and this year transferred into the Afro-AmericanStudies Department where, she says, "everythinghas come together." A tutorial with Phillip BrianHarper, assistant professor of English andAmerican literature and language and Afro-Americanstudies, a course with visiting Professor PatriciaJ. Williams, and a course with visiting LecturerSpike Lee have convinced Nelson that sheeventually wants to go to graduate school.

Nelson hopes to study for a joint degree in lawad American civilization, but for the next twoyear she wants to work perhaps in the Bay Area orWashington, D.C.

Nelson's recent academic work has particularlyspurred her interest in the connections betweenrace and gender. In lee's course, for example,Nelson has spoken out regularly about sexism infilms by Black directors. Lee challenged her towrite a move about Black women, and Nelson iscurrently working on a script based on her ownexperience as a Black woman at Harvard.

"At Harvard, with the absence of Black womenfaculty and administrators, you kind of feel, notthat you can't find role models and mentorselsewhere, but that there's this really weirddynamic....[because other students have theopportunity to see other people like them. So I'dlike to deal with that issue, with what it is liketo really feel alone."

In addition to BSA, Nelson has taken on a rangeof other activities that is, to say the least,extensive.

Drama and dance have been the most important ofNelson's other activities. She acted in "A ChorusLine" in her sophomore year, and in "Crossroads,"a student-written play about a Black college atthe beginning of the Civil Right Movement, duringher junior year. This year, she acted in "OurHusband Has Gone Mad Again," an African play inwhich she played the youngest of three wives whocomes to lead a women's political party. Nelsonalso co-directed Expressions Dance Company for asemester and co-produced Jazz for Life.

Add to drama and dance her extensive work withthe Harvard Foundation, a summer with theCambridge, Youth Enrichment Program, and threeyears as a minority recruiter for the admissionsoffice and you have a woman who has been awfullybusy.

Nelson's says she copes with her academic workand multiple commitments by using her dramaticactivities to release the pressure of herpoliticial ones. "Culture is a way for me torelease, to get out of the political realm, to besomeone else, to be in a totally differentsituation," Nelson says. "Going to play rehearsalis like therapy for me in a lot of ways.

Nelson says that her work with the admissionsoffice has been particularly important to her.Each of the last three years, she has spent a weekin the fall at home in Detroit and Flint as aminority recruiter in area high school, "As muchas I have criticism about this place, I probablywould not have gone anywhere else," Nelson says."I feel like I have a responsibility to go backand share what I have experienced here."

Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial AidRichard I. Melvoin '73 travelled with Nelson inMichigan on her three recruiting trips: "I thinkwhat students and parents most appreciated aboutMecca was that instead of some some agingadmissions officer trying to tell them whatHarvard was like, she was not only a reallivestudent, but one who was remarkably active, onewho does not see Harvard with rose-coloredglasses, yet one who represents the place well inall its complexity."

"The positive side she would present to studentis that this is a college that providesextraordinary opportunities for students to pushin the direction they choose," Melvoin says. "Theflip side is that she also saw it as a place thatneeds to improve...She's not shy about talkingabout those kinds of issues. What ultimately wascompelling is that she was not just talking, shewas doing it, and she was doing it in a way thatdid not alienate the people she was confronting.