Chaos has marked recent weeks in Cairo and other major Egyptian cities as protestors have fought pitched battles against supporters of the government and pushed hard to gain concessions from the current government

“You couldn’t really tell what directions things were going to go, and if they were going to get more violent,” she said.

Youngblood was awarded a Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship—which provides select Harvard seniors with $18,000 for purposeful international travel—in order to study race and cultural identity in Egypt. Before her departure, she was working at the Townhouse art gallery in downtown Cairo.

“Cairo won’t be the same,” she said, but she intends to return to Egypt and finish her year working at the gallery despite the political unrest.

This political movement could potentially signal the return of a political voice for millions of Egyptians.

“It’s beautiful because Egyptians are getting back their sense of ownership of their own country,” Bayoumi said.

—Staff writer Julia L. Ryan can be reached at jryan@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Kevin J. Wu can be reached at kwu@college.harvard.edu.