Paul Rusesabagina

Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan hotel manager who sheltered more than 1,200 people during the country’s 1994 genocide, will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17, in Denison University’s Swasey Chapel (200 Chapel Drive). The lecture, titled “Hotel Rwanda: A Lesson Yet to Be Learned,” is presented by the Denison University African Student Association, as part of African Awareness Week, and is sponsored by the Denison Campus Governance Association and the Laura C. Harris Symposium. The event is free and open to the public.

For two months of his life, Rusesabagina watched his country fall into the grips of genocide. A Hutu manager of a luxury hotel in Rwanda, he sheltered more than 1,200 people, including his own Tutsi wife and children, saving their lives at a time when extremists massacred more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes in just 100 days. Considered the “Rwandan Schindler,” his story and that of the genocide is chronicled in the critically acclaimed film “Hotel Rwanda.”