Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the last surviving South African laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, has died aged 90.

 

The cleric, anti-apartheid and human rights activist, who was described by South Africans and admirers worldwide as the moral conscience of his country, took his last breath on Sunday in Cape Town.

Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end apartheid rule. A decade later, he witnessed a power shift from the apartheid government to the African National Congress [ANC]. He was subsequently tasked to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by the Government of National Unity to help deal with what happened under apartheid.

The Nation looks at some of the critical moments in Tutu's life.

 Birth and early days

On 7 October 1931, Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born to Zachariah [a teacher] and a domestic worker Aletta in Klerksdorp, some 130km west of Johannesburg. He was one of four children in a family that struggled to make ends meet.

When he was a teenager, the family moved to Munsieville, a black settlement in Krugersdorp, Gauteng. While living in Munsieville, Tutu earned extra money by collecting and delivering laundry his mother had washed.

He also sold oranges and peanuts for a small profit and worked as a caddy at the Killarney golf course.

In 1943, Tutu's Methodist family switched allegiance to the Anglican Church.

 

Significant influencer of his life

Tutu began high school at Western High School near Sophiatown, a suburb in Jo'burg, in 1945, where he excelled in academics and developed his lifelong love of rugby after joining the school team.

Two years later, he contracted tuberculosis [TB] and had to be 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 an 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 in life when he faced the struggle against apartheid.
It was always his dream to become a doctor, but he could not find the funding for medical school. Instead, he studied to be a teacher.

 

Working as a Teacher

While Tutu worked as a teacher, he met Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a fellow teacher at a school his dad was headmaster. The two got married in 1955 and had four children together.

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 Tutu was ordained as an Anglican priest.

From 1962 to 1966, he worked on getting his Bachelors and Master's degree in Theology from King's College London in the United Kingdom. While Tutu was abroad, he was inspired by the freedom of expression and the easy access to knowledge and education he witnessed there. He wanted this kind of freedom for his people back in South Africa.

 

Return to South Africa

Upon his return home in 1967, he joined the staff of the Federal Theological Seminary in Alice and became the chaplain at the University of Fort Hare. In 1975, Tutu was ordained the Dean of St Mary's Cathedral, Johannesburg, and elected as Bishop of Lesotho.

In the same year, 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 as a gesture of support for his role in dismantling apartheid.

The following year, he was elected as Bishop of Johannesburg. He, however, continued to push for change and promoted unity between the black and white Anglicans of South Africa. 

In 1986, he was elected to become the Archbishop of Cape Town, and in 1987, Tutu was elected as President of the All African Conference of Churches.

 

Building a 'Rainbow Nation'

In 1994, after Nelson Mandela swept to power at the helm of the African National Congress 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.

In 1997, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He has since been hospitalised to treat recurring infections.

 

Fall out with ANC

In 2011, the Dalai Lama inaugurated the annual Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture but did so via satellite link after the South African government denied the Tibetan spiritual leader a visa to attend.

Two years later, 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".

Earlier in 2021, a frail-looking Tutu was wheeled into his former parish at St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, which used to be a haven for anti-apartheid activists, for an exceptional thanksgiving service marking his 90th birthday.

On Sunday, 26 December, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the death of Tutu.