Nailah Harper-Malveaux. Photo from Facebook

Nailah Harper-Malveaux, a senior at Yale University in Connecticut, is making waves as a young activist, The New York Times reports.

The paper includes Harper-Malveaux in a feature on "New Student Activists." As a theater and American studies major, she has been focusing on race and gender issues by staging productions like for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf and participating in rallies on campus.

"There’s a dearth of voices of women of color in the Yale theater community. Black women are at the bottom of the totem pole," Harper-Malveaux tells The New York Times. "When you free women of color, you free everyone."

Harper-Malveaux is a daughter of Ambassador Keith Harper, a member of the Cherokee Nation. She tells the Times that she identifies as Indian and African-American -- her mother is Suzette M. Malveaux, a professor of Creole ancestry.

"Because I’m mixed I have been very conscious of race my whole life, which is probably why I’ve participated in so many political events at Yale," Harper-Malveaux tells the paper.

Get the Story:
The New Student Activists (The New York Times 2/1)