Professor Cherif Keita, a French professor and an award-winning filmmaker, will retire from Carleton College in June. Since August 1985, Keita has been part of the Carleton community. “I can’t imagine Carleton without Cherif,” said Professor Carol Donelan, professor of cinema and media studies.

Donelan has known Keita for 25 years, both as a colleague and a friend. “I will especially miss hearing his voice in the Weitz Cinema hallways, the mix of English and French as he calls out greetings to virtually everyone he meets,” said Donelan.

Born and raised in Mali, Keita’s government sent him to Brussels to train as a translator and interpreter in English and Russian. Unfortunately, political instability brought him to the United States, where he studied French and Francophone literature in graduate school at the University of Georgia. When Keita first found his new position at Carleton, he was hesitant.

“After so many years being away from home, I felt that coming to Minnesota would even, you know, put me farther away from Africa,” said Keita.

But when he arrived on campus, the community convinced him to stay. “I found a certain world in people. And for me, that’s what is important,” said Keita.

In his time at Carleton, Keita discovered unexpected global connections in small-town Northfield.

“In 1881, a family left Northfield as missionaries to go to South Africa… But these were Christian missionaries of a different kind. They were very radical. They turned out to be the people who planted the seeds for literally a revolution, both intellectual and political in South Africa, leading to democratic South Africa today,” said Keita.

Over the next few decades, Keita began his studies in South Africa. He led the January Term (J-Term, a short academic session held at St. Olaf) off-campus studies program to South Africa. Throughout the trip, many locals shared their admiration for Nelson Mandela with him. Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, the first president of South Africa and the president of the African National Congress (ANC). Hoping to give something back, Keita began researching South African history and learned about the founder of the ANC, Nelson Mandela’s predecessor, John L. Dube.

Keita decided to make a film about Dube. Knowing that Mandela might help with this project, Keita emailed him to request an interview. Although Mandela agreed, he told Keita he had no knowledge of Dube but urged him to undertake the project.

“I realized that he had really placed a challenge in front of me. Because he said, ‘I wish you good luck on this project.’ I realized then that he was telling me, ‘You are a young person; you have to do the research [and] to teach us about this man,’” said Keita.

Keita took on the challenge with the hope of educating not only Mandela about Dube, but also South Africa.

“I saw that there was an opportunity to really meet Nelson Mandela’s challenge, for me to educate him and the whole nation. [The film is] about a leader who was not known in his own country and people did not know,” said Keita.

After the production of Keita’s first two films, Nelson Mandela had the opportunity to see both, which later aired on South African television.

“His challenge to me is really what made me do all this work that I’ve been doing for the past 26 years,” Keita said. “It’s because of Nelson Mandela, who told me, ‘You are the young person, my generation does not know a lot of things about this long struggle.’ Because [Mandela] himself said, ‘It’s a long walk to freedom.’ The long walk to freedom meant that many people died on the road and Mandela himself did not know many of those people.”

Keita’s contribution extended beyond South Africa to Carleton.

“Let’s not forget the role Cherif has played in bringing world-class African filmmakers and musicians to Carleton over the years. So many thrilling screenings and performances,” said Donelan.

“The one thing that he does that I really like is his very immersive style of teaching. He’ll show us [something] like music and then have conversations with us and get us more immersed in the language and just have the learning come more organically,” said Henry Anderson, a first-year student in Keita’s French 102 class.

As Keita’s retirement approaches, he said he plans to remain in Northfield but feels a sense of melancholy.

“This has been my home, you know? This has been almost like a cradle for me. You grew up; you left the cradle,” said Keita.

However, Keita noted that he will continue to help the Carleton community if people need him. “I will always be part of Carleton. And I will always look for any opportunity. I can continue to contribute to Carleton. Anybody who comes to me for anything, I’d be willing.”

“Sababu mandògò” is a Malian proverb that is important to Keita. In Bambara, it means “no connection is too small in this life.” This quote embodies how Keita interacts with his colleagues, friends, students, interviewers and the other people he has encountered throughout his lifetime.