Film Screening: Cemetery Stories – A Rebel Missionary in South Africa by Dr. Cherif Keita

This film screening was held at NYU Africa House and presented by Africa House in partnership with Wagner Student Alliance for Africa (WSAFA), the Black Student Association (BSA), NYU Steinhardt’s Higher and Postsecondary Education Program, The Council of Young African Leaders, and the Institute for African American Affairs, NYU. The film follows the life of John Langalibalele Dube. In South Africa, the Wilcoxes challenged mission policy by defending native land rights against the white authorities and preaching racial equality and social justice. The Wilcoxes became mentors to Dube, then a 16-year-old orphan whose mother had entrusted him to the missionaries, and took responsibility for his education, training him as a printer (during an interlude spent in upstate New York) and eventually sending him to Oberlin College in Ohio. Dube would use his education and training as a Congregationalist pastor to form South Africa’s first black-owned industrial school, to launch Ilanga Lase Natal (The Natal Sun, the first English-Zulu newspaper) and to help found the ANC, becoming an early pioneer in the decades-long struggle for freedom. Today Dube has been honored for his work by Nelson Mandela and other leaders and acknowledged as one of the forbearers of modern South Africa.