On the day the dictator took him, James Sabune got a warning to leave Uganda.
But the Rutgers University-Camden law student was defiant and stubborn. He hadn't done anything. Surely he could explain that the protests he led in America had his homeland's best interests at heart. And he had promised a friend he would attend her birthday party in a few days.
So he stayed.
That night in 1976, the 32-year-old was lured to Uganda's notorious State Research Bureau. His family never saw him again.
And for years his relatives didn't speak much of him. There was denial; after all, they never saw his body. There was anger that he hadn't run when he could, that he had returned to Uganda in the first place, when much of the family was sure that brutal dictator Idi Amin would have him murdered. There was blame.
Until yesterday there had been just one service, said his brother Petero, an Episcopal priest who relatives said looks, sounds, and acts strikingly like James.
In honor of James' 65th birthday, though, and with a bit of good luck, three generations of Sabunes gathered at the Rutgers School of Law in Camden to remember him.
There were sisters and cousins and nephews and nieces from Philadelphia, Voorhees, San Diego, Washington, North Carolina, and New York, and letters from an old professor, relatives in Africa, and two former classmates.
Marguerite Ferra, a Camden resident who was friends with James when they were Rutgers undergraduates, helped organize the event and brought her daughter and husband.
Don Munson of Collingswood came after reading a column Ferra wrote about James in The Inquirer.
In all there were 24 people in a classroom, with bagels, doughnuts, a video recapping James' life, African drums, warm family hugs, and stories.
"Today is a time to come together to put together the puzzle of a life that was cut short," said Petero, a chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York state.
James was one of 10 brothers and sisters in Uganda, and a leader among his siblings. He was lean and angular. Intense, hardworking, and competitive in school, James was always reading, even in the shower, his family recalled.
He would gather his brothers and sisters and kids from the neighborhood and lead debates, forcing them to take sides and argue on African issues, Nelson Mandela, the Kennedys, and more.
In late 1968, he came to the Philadelphia College of Bible, and later enrolled at Rutgers. He was the first in his family to emigrate to America. Many of his siblings followed.
Ferra said James had "a rich musical voice." He loved to talk, but would demand privacy while penning letters home.
"He was one of my favorite friends," Ferra said. "You never think that person will disappear. You always think you'll see them at a reunion."
He was an idealist, she said. He believed students could change society.
In 1975, James, then in law school, and Petero, who had followed him to Rutgers and then transferred to Vassar College, went to a Ugandan Students' Association convention in Pittsburgh. James was elected president.
Soon after, the group began protesting at the United Nations, rallying against businesses that worked with Amin's murderous regime. In 1976, Amin spoke at the United Nations and demanded to meet the group's leaders.
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