Frank Chikane
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Frank Chikane (born 1951) is a South African civil servant, writer and cleric. He is a member of the African National Congress.
[edit] Biography
Chikane grew up in Soweto, one of the poorest urban slums in all of South Africa. As the son of a preacher in the Apostolic Faith Mission, an evangelical protestant church based in the United States, Chikane was able to receive an education. After finishing primary school, Chikane went to the University of the North to study sciences in hopes of becoming a physician. However, while at the university, Chikane became involved in the Black Consciousness Movement and met future post-apartheid leader South African leader, Cyril Ramaphosa. Chikane led protests at the university against apartheid, which resulted in his leaving the university without a degree in 1975. In early 1977, while working in the AFM as a layman, he was detained for a month under the Terrorism act but was eventually released after a judge dismissed his case. Chikane was eventually ordained by the church in 1980, when he began advocating social programs such as a soup kitchen and adult education within the church for its primarily African population. For these actions, Chikane was suspended from the conservative minded AFM in 1981, which would last until his reinstatement in 1990. After suspension from the AFM, Chikane joined the Institute for Contextual Theology, a Christian think-tank inside of the South African Council of Churches which promoted liberation theology of which he became the general-secretary of in 1983. In 1985, Chikane was one of the leading promoters of the Kairos Document, a leading Christian denunciation of Apartheid. In the late 1980s, agents of the apartheid government attempted to assassinate Chikane using poison.
From 1987 to 1994, Chikane was secretary general of the SACC. From 1997 onward, he has been a member of the African National Congress' National Executive Committee. Since 1999, Chikane has been the Directory General of the presidency of South Africa under Thabo Mbeki.
