Desmond Tutu

South African religious and civil rights leader

• Born: October 7, 1931
• Birthplace: Klerksdorp, South Africa
• Died: December 26, 2021
• Place of death: Cape Town, South Africa

Desmond Tutu, a native-born South African and an Anglican bishop, was a leading opponent of apartheid, the state-sanctioned system of racial segregation in South Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent approach to settling differences and unrest in South Africa, bringing global attention to apartheid and leading to its demise in the early 1990s.

Early Life

Desmond Tutu was born on October 7, 1931, in Klerksdorp, South Africa, a small town southwest of Johannesburg. He was the second of three children born to Zachariah and Aleta Tutu. His father was the headmaster of the Methodist primary school in Klerksdorp. At the time, schooling for White children was provided by the government, but because Tutu was Black, his family had to pay to enroll him at St. Ansgar’s, a Swedish missionary boarding school.

In 1943, when Tutu was twelve years old, the family moved to Johannesburg. While still in high school, Tutu contracted tuberculosis and spent almost two years in bed. During this time of illness, British-born bishop Trevor Huddleston visited Tutu once a week, bringing him books and other educational materials. Huddleston was to have a great influence on Tutu’s later life. Tutu excelled as a student and by 1950 had graduated from Madibane High. He obtained a teacher's certificate in 1953 from Pretoria Normal Bantu College and a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Africa in 1954.

Tutu began teaching high school in 1953, the same year the South African government passed the Bantu Education Act. Education for Black children, advocates of the act argued, should be geared toward their own culture and language and not to the cultures and languages of the rest of the country. The Bantu Education Act essentially prohibited Black children from receiving the same education as White children and diverted funds from schools that did not downgrade their curricula for Black students. In 1958, Tutu resigned from his teaching position in protest and began studying for the priesthood.

Tutu married Leah Shenxane in 1955. The couple had a son, Trevor, and three daughters, Theresa, Naomi, and Mpho.

Life’s Work

In the late nineteenth century, indigenous African tribes had sought protection from the British colonial administration against the Boers, White farmers of Dutch descent who were encroaching on the lands of Black South Africans. The British intervened, leading to the Boer Wars, and dominated the Boers, but Africans did not receive the political rights they were hoping for. Instead, the British set up the system called apartheid, meaning separate, in which Black South Africans were separated from White South Africans in all areas of society. To take one example, social services for Black South Africans, such as medical care, were segregated and typically very inferior. The Separate Amenities Act of 1953 created separate beaches, buses, hospitals, and universities as well.

As a child and as an adolescent, Tutu more or less accepted apartheid as the normal course of daily life. However, the Bantu Education Act of 1953, which codified apartheid laws in education, was the breaking point for Tutu.

When he resigned from his teaching position, Tutu decided to study theology. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1960 and was assigned to a church in Thokoza, a Black township southeast of Johannesburg. In 1962 he was awarded a scholarship to study for a degree in theology at King’s College, University of London, where he obtained a master of theology in 1966. In London, Tutu and his wife experienced a nonsegregated society for the first time in their lives, one in which they could walk on the streets without being questioned and did not have to carry passes to identify themselves.

Tutu returned to South Africa in 1967 and taught theology until 1972, when he returned to England as the associate director of the Theological Education Fund. In 1975 he returned to South Africa after he was appointed as the first Black Anglican dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg. The following year he was consecrated as the bishop of Lesotho.

Tutu had been sensing that young Black South Africans were seriously discontented. He warned Prime Minister John Vorster and later President P. W. Botha of the growing rise of restlessness and violence, but neither paid attention. Earlier, in 1960, police had fired on a crowd of Black demonstrators at Sharpeville, killing sixty-nine people and wounding many others. In 1964, the leader of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, Nelson Mandela, had been sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1978, Tutu became the first Black general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the largest ecumenical organization in the country. Under his leadership, SACC became an important force in the opposition to apartheid. The unrest continued. Anti-apartheid leaders Stephen Biko and Neil Aggett were killed while in police custody in 1977 and 1982, respectively. By 1984, violence reigned in South Africa, and still the country's leaders did nothing.

Tutu called for an international boycott of trade with South Africa and asked that foreign businesses withdraw their investments from the country. A great number of people in the United States called for companies to stop doing business with South Africa until apartheid was abolished. US president Ronald Reagan called for what he termed “constructive engagement” with South Africa, meaning that he would negotiate with South African leaders to rid the country of apartheid. Tutu vigorously opposed this policy, arguing that it only gave the South African government more time to suppress Black people and to keep Mandela in prison. In a speech given in Washington, DC, Tutu called the Reagan administration's policy toward South Africa “immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian,” and considered Reagan “the great, big, white chief of old” for lacking the courage to vigorously condemn apartheid.

Tutu gained more influence after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts against apartheid, and he was appointed the first Black Anglican bishop of Johannesburg, a position he held from 1985 until 1986. He was recognized for his nonviolent crusade to end apartheid and to dismantle the White minority government. The Nobel Prize gave him and his cause international recognition. In 1986, Tutu set another milestone with his election and consecration as archbishop of Cape Town.

In February 1990, after twenty-seven years in prison, Mandela was released from custody, and the ban against the ANC and other anti-apartheid organizations was lifted, setting in motion formal negotiations to end the apartheid regime. By May, formal talks began, and apartheid was finally abolished in 1993. Tutu’s work, and the work of countless others, to rid South Africa of apartheid culminated in the general elections of 1994, when Mandela was elected president, becoming the first Black South African to hold that office.

Tutu remained active in global politics and used his high profile to advocate for human rights worldwide. In July 2007, with Mandela and Graça Machel, Tutu cofounded the Elders, a group of retired political figures and activists who work to solve global problems. The group has included former president of the United States Jimmy Carter, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, former prime minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, and former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Anan. Tutu chaired the organization from its founding in 2007 until 2013. With this and other groups, as well as on his own, Tutu spoke out on various subjects including political corruption, economic inequality and poverty, diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, climate change, women's rights, and the Iraq War. He became an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ rights and prominently campaigned against homophobia in Christianity, in Africa, and around the world. Some of his views proved controversial, notably his opposition to Zionism and his comparison between Israeli policies and apartheid, which led some to accuse Tutu of anti-Semitism.

Despite occasional controversies, Tutu was the recipient of many awards in recognition of his distinguished career and peace efforts. In February 2007, Tutu was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, president of India. In 2009, Tutu was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US president Barack Obama. In 2013, Tutu was awarded the Templeton Prize for his lifelong efforts to promote peace and forgiveness worldwide.

Though Tutu's weakening health meant more frequent hospital stays and that he was not as public of a figure by the early 2020s, he provided input at times such as the 2018 election of Cyril Ramaphosa as South Africa's president following the resignation amid corruption allegations of Jacob Zuma. Tutu died of cancer, at the age of ninety, in a Cape Town care facility on December 26, 2021.

Significance

In 1995, Tutu, perhaps the best-known figure along with Mandela in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa, became head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission was tasked with bringing together perpetrators and survivors of apartheid to face one another and to discuss ways to end the pathology of discrimination, oppression, and hatred. “Victims and survivors who bore the brunt of the apartheid system need healing,” Tutu said. “Perpetrators are, in their own way, victims of the apartheid system and they, too, need healing.” As an Anglican bishop and as Nobel laureate, Tutu used his stature in the community to help bring apartheid to the attention of the world and then to promote reconciliation in South Africa.

Following the dismantling of the apartheid regime in the 1990s, Tutu remained active in global politics, speaking out against human rights violations worldwide. He frequently promoted efforts to combat global poverty and to eradicate HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases. With the Elders, he was involved in conflict resolution efforts across the globe, including Cyprus and the Sudan. Decades after the end of the South African apartheid regime, Tutu continued to use his high profile to advocate for oppressed peoples worldwide, making him one of the most influential human rights activists of his time.

Bibliography

Allen, John. Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu. New York: Free, 2006. Print.

"Archbishop Tutu 'Would Not Worship a Homophobic God.'" BBC News. BBC, 26 July 2013. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.

Beall, Megan Louise. "The Rhetorical Magic of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Civil Rights Battle in South Africa." NAAAS and Affiliates Conference Monographs (2010): 1984–2001. Print.

Bentley, Judith. Archbishop Tutu of South Africa. Hillsdale: Enslow, 1988. Print.

Berger, Marilyn. "Desmond Tutu, Whose Voice Helped Slay Apartheid, Dies at 90." The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/world/africa/desmond-tutu-dead.html. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022.

Chaudary, Amina. "Interview with Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape Town." Muslim World 100.1 (2010): 117–123. Print.

Clark, Nancy L., and William H. Worger. South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. New York: Longman, 2004. Print.

Davenport, T. R. H., and Christopher Saunders. South Africa: A Modern History. 5th ed. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. Print.

De Klerk, B. J. “Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu: Living Icons of Reconciliation.” Ecumenical Review 55.4 (2003): 322–34. Print.

Gish, Steven. Desmond Tutu: A Biography. Westport: Greenwood, 2004. Print.

Sparks, Allister, and Mpho A. Tutu. Tutu: The Authorised Portrait. London: Macmillan, 2011. Print.

Tutu, Desmond. The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution. Ed. John Allen. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Print.

Tutu, Desmond, and John Allen. God Is Not a Christian: Sepaking Truth in Times of Crisis. London: Rider, 2013. Print.