wfn.org | Lutherans Will Host African Diaspora Event

[Brenda Williams <BRENDAW@elca.org>]

Reply-To: ElcaNews <ELCANEWS@ELCASCO.ELCA.ORG>
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

May 28, 1998

LUTHERANS WILL HOST AFRICAN DIASPORA EVENT
98-19-117-BW

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Economic development among Africans and Blacks
globally and advocacy for expanded immigration of Africans to the United
States will be topics discussed when more than 300 members of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America meet June 4-7 in Tuskegee, Ala.,
under the theme "Africans and Blacks in the Diaspora."
     Diaspora is defined as "people settled far from their ancestral
homeland."
      "This meeting brings together Africans and the descendants of
Africans who were dispersed to several countries throughout the world as
slaves," said the Rev. Eric T. Campbell, director for African American
Ministries in the ELCA's Commission for Multicultural Ministries.
     This "consultation of Black peoples" will bring together Africans and
people of African descent from Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa,
Tanzania, Germany, the Caribbean and the  United States at one of the
United States' first Black universities.
     "Holding this event in the heart of the 'Black Belt'-- a rural area
of the United States with a largely Black population -- is a way of
building bridges with Africans and Blacks in the diaspora," said Campbell.
     "We want to underline the economic disparities of people living in
the Black Belt and show the similarities of  Black people's struggles all
over the world," Campbell said.
     Dr. Musa Biyela, head of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at
Umphumulo in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, will be the keynote speaker at
the event's "Village Banquet."
     Other presentors will be John Whitfield, program director for
immigration services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, New York,
and Dr. Richard Onukegam Nwachukwu, Dallas, Texas, president of Good Hope
Enterprises, a publishing house which specializes in African authors.
     The consultation is supported by a grant from Lutheran Brotherhood, a
fraternal benefits organization, Minneapolis, and is co-sponsored by the
Interdenominational Minister's Council of Tuskegee and Tuskegee
University's Center for Continuing Education.

For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html