Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu (7 October 1931 – 26 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first Black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from Black theology with African theology.
Desmond Tutu
7 September 1986
23 June 1996
- 1960 (deacon)
- 1961 (priest)
1976
26 December 2021 (aged 90)
Cape Town, Western Cape, Republic of South Africa
4, including Mpho
Tutu was born of mixed Xhosa and Motswana heritage to a poor family in Klerksdorp, South Africa. Entering adulthood, he trained as a teacher and married Nomalizo Leah Tutu, with whom he had several children. In 1960, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and in 1962 moved to the United Kingdom to study theology at King's College London. In 1966 he returned to southern Africa, teaching at the Federal Theological Seminary and then the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. In 1972, he became the Theological Education Fund's director for Africa, a position based in London but necessitating regular tours of the African continent. Back in southern Africa in 1975, he served first as dean of St Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg and then as Bishop of Lesotho; from 1978 to 1985 he was general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches. He emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation and white minority rule. Although warning the National Party government that anger at apartheid would lead to racial violence, as an activist he stressed non-violent protest and foreign economic pressure to bring about universal suffrage.
In 1985, Tutu became Bishop of Johannesburg and in 1986 the Archbishop of Cape Town, the most senior position in southern Africa's Anglican hierarchy. In this position, he emphasised a consensus-building model of leadership and oversaw the introduction of female priests. Also in 1986, he became president of the All Africa Conference of Churches, resulting in further tours of the continent. After President F. W. de Klerk released the anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990 and the pair led negotiations to end apartheid and introduce multi-racial democracy, Tutu assisted as a mediator between rival black factions. After the 1994 general election resulted in a coalition government headed by Mandela, the latter selected Tutu to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses committed by both pro and anti-apartheid groups. Following apartheid's fall, Tutu campaigned for gay rights and spoke out on a wide range of subjects, among them his criticism of South African presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, his opposition to the Iraq War, and describing Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid. In 2010, he retired from public life, but continued to speak out on numerous topics and events.
As Tutu rose to prominence in the 1970s, different socio-economic groups and political classes held a wide range of views about him, from critical to admiring. He was popular among South Africa's black majority and was internationally praised for his work involving anti-apartheid activism, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize and other international awards. He also compiled several books of his speeches and sermons.
Early life[edit]
Childhood: 1931–1950[edit]
Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born on 7 October 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, South Africa.[1] His mother, Allen Dorothea Mavoertsek Mathlare, was born to a Motswana family in Boksburg.[2] His father, Zachariah Zelilo Tutu, was from the amaFengu branch of Xhosa and grew up in Gcuwa, Eastern Cape.[3] At home, the couple spoke the Xhosa language.[4] Having married in Boksburg,[5] they moved to Klerksdorp in the late 1950s, living in the city's "native location", or black residential area, since renamed Makoeteng.[6] Zachariah worked as the principal of a Methodist primary school and the family lived in the mud-brick schoolmaster's house in the yard of the Methodist mission.[7]
Career during apartheid[edit]
Teaching in South Africa and Lesotho: 1966–1972[edit]
In 1966, Tutu and his family moved to East Jerusalem, where he studied Arabic and Greek for two months at St George's College.[81] They then returned to South Africa,[82] settling in Alice, Eastern Cape, in 1967. The Federal Theological Seminary (Fedsem) had recently been established there as an amalgamation of training institutions from different Christian denominations.[83] At Fedsem, Tutu was employed teaching doctrine, the Old Testament, and Greek;[84] Leah became its library assistant.[85] Tutu was the college's first black staff-member,[86] and the campus allowed a level of racial-mixing which was rare in South Africa.[87] The Tutus sent their children to a private boarding school in Swaziland, thereby keeping them from South Africa's Bantu Education syllabus.[88]
Tutu joined a pan-Protestant group, the Church Unity Commission,[85] served as a delegate at Anglican-Catholic conversations,[89] and began publishing in academic journals.[89] He also became the Anglican chaplain to the neighbouring University of Fort Hare;[90] in an unusual move for the time, Tutu invited female as well as male students to become servers during the Eucharist.[91] He joined student delegations to meetings of the Anglican Students' Federation and the University Christian Movement,[92] and was broadly supportive of the Black Consciousness Movement that emerged from South Africa's 1960s student milieu, although did not share its view on avoiding collaboration with whites.[93] In August 1968, he gave a sermon comparing South Africa's situation with that in the Eastern Bloc, likening anti-apartheid protests to the recent Prague Spring.[94] In September, Fort Hare students held a sit-in protest over the university administration's policies; after they were surrounded by police with dogs, Tutu waded into the crowd to pray with the protesters.[95] This was the first time that he had witnessed state power used to suppress dissent.[96]
In January 1970, Tutu left the seminary for a teaching post at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) in Roma, Lesotho.[97] This brought him closer to his children and offered twice the salary he earned at Fedsem.[98] He and his wife moved to the UBLS campus; most of his fellow staff members were white expatriates from the US or Britain.[99] As well as his teaching position, he also became the college's Anglican chaplain and the warden of two student residences.[100] In Lesotho, he joined the executive board of the Lesotho Ecumenical Association and served as an external examiner for both Fedsem and Rhodes University.[89] He returned to South Africa on several occasions, including to visit his father shortly before the latter's death in February 1971.[89]
Tutu is the author of seven collections of sermons in addition to other writings: