South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Icon, Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu Dies At 90

By IndraStra Global News Team

By IndraStra Global News Team

Cover Image Attribute: Desmond M. Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa gestures during the session 'Believing in the Dignity of All' at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, February 1, 2009. / Source: World Economic Forum

On December 26, 2021, South African anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu died at age 90. He was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was the Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then the Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first African to hold the position. From 1996 to 1998, he led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, aimed at exposing the injustices of the past. It was Tutu who coined and popularised the term "Rainbow Nation" to describe South Africa when Nelson Mandela became the country's first black president.

Born on October 7, 1931, in Klerksdorp, west of Johannesburg, Tutu worked as a teacher before entering a theological seminary. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1961, obtained a master’s degree in theology at King’s College, University of London, and in 1975 was appointed Dean of Johannesburg, the first Black person to hold the post.

He became general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, an organization at the forefront of the struggle against White-minority rule, in 1978. He called for economic sanctions against the apartheid regime, in defiance of a law that made it illegal to advocate such actions. The government responded by withdrawing his passport.

In 1984, the Nobel Committee awarded Tutu its annual Peace Prize, citing his “role as a unifying leader figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.”

Tutu had been hospitalized several times since 2015, after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997. In recent years he and his wife, Leah, lived in a retirement community outside Cape Town.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa released an official statement; "The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation's farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa."

IndraStra Global is now available on
Apple News, Google News, Flipboard, Feedburner, and Telegram

COPYRIGHT: This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

REPUBLISH: Republish our articles online or in print for free if you follow these guidelines. https://www.indrastra.com/p/republish-us.html