Hope College graduate Lunga Sinuka will present a one-man performance of "The Cool Train," his memoir of growing up in South Africa during the repressive Apartheid era, on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. at Hope College in the DeWitt Center main theatre.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Following the performance, Earl James, who is coordinator of multiracial initiatives and social justice for the Reformed Church in America (RCA), will lead a discussion with the audience on the performance and on the Belhar Confession.
As noted on Sinuka's Web site at www.thecooltrain.com, his journey reflects he lives of many black South Africans before the end of Apartheid in 1994--from his childhood in a Xhosa village with no electricity or running water, to working as a glass cleaner at one of South Africa's best hotels, and eventually joining the African National Congress in the violent struggle for freedom.
Sinuka immigrated to the United States in 1992. He has a B.A. in public administration from Cape University of Technology in South Africa and a B.A. in business administration from Hope, from which he graduated in 1995. In America he has worked for the American Red Cross and other social service organizations, and also as a loan officer with First National Bank.
He now lives in Minneapolis, Minn., with his wife, Sara. "The Cool Train" is his first play and the first time he is performing on stage since high school.
The Belhar Confession is a confession of the Christian church in South Africa written out of the struggle against Apartheid in the 1980s. Following several years of study and reflection on the confession by the RCA's members and congregations, the 2009 General Synod of the RCA voted to adopt the Belhar Confession as a standard of unity, a decision that now needs approval by two thirds of the RCA's 46 classes. More information about the Belhar Confession may be found in the Belhar Confession Study Center on the RCA's Web site at www.rca.org.
The DeWitt Center is located at 141 E. 12th St., facing Columbia Avenue at 12th Street.