Life and times of Desmond Tutu

Anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Sunday at 90, was a highly respected global figure who accomplished great achievements in life.

His highest global accomplishment was being named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end apartheid rule. 

A decade later, he witnessed the transfer of power from the apartheid government to the African National Congress (ANC).

The Nation.Africa takes a look at some of the key moments in Tutu’s life.

Significant influencer on his life

While in high school, Tutu contracted tuberculosis (TB) and was hospitalised for 18 months. While in hospital, he befriended Father Trevor Huddleston, who became a significant influence in his life and under whom he served at the parish church in Munsieville. Huddleston was an anti-apartheid activist and English Anglican Bishop working as a priest in Sophiatown.

Tutu was impressed by the priest’s respect for his domestic worker mother, a person considered much lower than him in social standing. He never forgot how Huddleston treated everyone with dignity; it inspired him later on when he faced the struggle against apartheid. 

It was always Tutu's dream to become a doctor, but he could not find the funding for medical school. Instead, he studied to be a teacher. 

Rejecting Bantu education 

When the Bantu Education Act was instituted, Tutu resigned from teaching, refusing to endorse the injustice that forced inferior education on people based on race. He moved on to continue his theology studies at St Peter’s Theology College in Johannesburg. This paid off in 1960 when he was ordained as an Anglican priest. 

The church’s voice

In 1967, he was appointed General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC). The SACC became a leading institution in the spiritual and political life of the Christians in South Africa and lent them a platform to voice their aspirations.

Between 1978 and 1985, Tutu was at the forefront on the national and international stage in the fight against injustices wrought by apartheid. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1984 in recognition of his role in dismantling apartheid.

Building a ‘Rainbow Nation’

In 1994, after Nelson Mandela swept to power at the helm of the ANC in the country’s first democratic elections, Tutu coined the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe the coming together of various races in post-apartheid South Africa. Mandela asked Tutu to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was set up to listen to, record and in some cases grant amnesty to perpetrators of human rights violations under apartheid.

In 1996, Tutu retired from the church to focus solely on the Commission. He continued his activism, advocating for equality and reconciliation and was later named Archbishop Emeritus.

Calling out ANC

In 2013, Tutu made outspoken comments about the ANC, saying he would no longer vote for the party because it had done a lousy job addressing inequality, violence and corruption.

Dubbed “the moral compass of the nation”, Tutu declared his support for gay rights, saying he would never “worship a God who is homophobic”.