Desmond Tutu

By Tom Kirvan

“Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.”

So said Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of South Africa and theologian who won the Noble Peace Prize in 1984 for his non-violent campaign to end apartheid in his native land.

Born October 7, 1931, Tutu suffered from tuberculosis as a teen, recovering from the lung disease to become a high school teacher and then a priest. In 1962, he moved to Great Britain to study theology at King’s College of London where he earned a bachelor’s degree indivinity. More than a decade later, Tutu became a trailblazer when he was appointed the first Black general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, helping establish the organization as a major force in the anti-apartheid movement.

Upon winning the Noble Peace Prize, Tutu earned worldwide recognition for articulating the suffering experienced by South Africa’s oppressed masses that for decades had been subjected to the brutalities of white minority rule.

His standing increased when Nelson Mandela rose to power as South Africa’s first Black president in 1994 after the country’s first multiracial democratic election, officially marking the end of the apartheid era in the sixth most populous country on the African continent. Tutu soon coined the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe the coming together of various races in post-apartheid South Africa.

Desmond Tutu*

Fittingly, Mandela appointed Tutu to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was established to “deal with what happened under apartheid” by investigating human rights violations and offering support to victims, while evaluating applications for amnesty from perpetrators of misconduct.

In 2010, Tutu retired from public life, but continued to champion gay rights and anti-war protests, noting that “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Upon his death in 2021 at the age of 90, Tutu was remembered for these immortal words: “We learn from history that we don’t learn from history!”

*Benny Gool, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons