Last spring, Inati Ntshanga '95 publicly charged Harvard police with racial harassment for his 1992 arrest.

Since then, Ntshanga says he has been harassed two more times, including an incident last week. He has come forward to complain about the harassment, he says, because speaking up is the only way to make things right.

"Sometimes we want justice," Ntshanga said in an interview yesterday. "We can only get justice if we let the whole world know."

Speaking up does not come naturally to Ntshanga. Friends describe him as quiet and light-hearted. What seems to motivate Ntshanga is a deep, almost religious belief in the power of openness and knowledge to achieve what he calls "justice."

Taziona Chaponda '97--who, with Ntshanga, is co-president of the Harvard African Students Association--says he was surprised when Ntshanga publicized the alleged harassment.

"He's a quiet person," Chaponds says. "I was kind of surprised that he called The Crimson and that he went to that extent because I really appreciated that this was something that really affected him."

Ntshanga, an economics concentrator, is originally from South Africa. He plans to return there after graduation to teach high school and to reform his native country's educational system.

"It was only when I got to this country that...I felt people treated me as a Black person," says Ntshanga, who is from the predominantly Black area of Engcoko.

Andover

In 1987, Ntshanga left South Africa to enroll at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. There, he was so well-liked by his fellow students that they put him on the varsity football team because they enjoyed his company, according to Vuyelwa Maqubela, the wife of Ntshanga's high school chemistry teacher.

Maqubela, who is also South African, provided a nurturing environment which sheltered him from racism, Ntshanga says.

And he hasn't forgotten that. This past summer, when the Maqubelas were moving. Ntshanga called them and offered his help. "He is a wonderful young man," Maqubela says. "We relied on him greatly."

At Harvard, Ntshanga quickly made new friends. Ernie Minelli '95, Ntshanga's first-year roommate, calls him a "fun-loving guy."

"I consider him a good friend and a dear friend," Minelli says.

University officials also laud him.

"I have known him exclusively to be very thoughtful and positive," said Mather House Senior Tutor Mary K. Peckham.