He is the powerful Civil Rights leader that fought against the apartheid regime in South Africa until its collapse.
Desmond Tutu, the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (Anglican Church of Southern Africa).
A defender of human rights and the oppressed. He has fought AIDS, tuberculosis, homophobia, poverty and racism. He has received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, the Gandhi Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
WASHINGTON - US PRESIDENT Barack Obama on Thursday praised retiring Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a 'moral titan' and a dedicated peacemaker as the Nobel laureate formally stepped away from public life.
http://www.straitstimes.com/...
Archbishop Tutu marked his 79th birthday and his retreat from public life with a party for family and friends on a cruise ship in Cape Town harbor.
http://www.voanews.com/...
Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in a small gold-mining town in the Transvaal. He first followed in his father's footsteps as a teacher, but abandoned that career after the passage of the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which enforced separation of races in all educational institutions.
He joined the Church and was strongly influenced by many white clergymen in the country, especially another strong opponent of apartheid, Bishop Trevor Huddleston.
Desmond Tutu became the first black Anglican Dean of Johannesburg in 1975.
He was already a high-profile Church figure before the 1976 rebellion in black townships, but it was in the months before the Soweto violence that he first became known to white South Africans as a campaigner for reform.
Inevitably, his pleas for justice and reconciliation in South Africa drew him into the political arena - but he always insisted that his motivation was religious, not political.
The churchman constantly told the government of the time that its racist approach defied the will of God and for that reason could not succeed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...
The White House Blog
Video and Statement: Celebrating Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Posted by Kori Schulman on October 07, 2010 at 01:05 PM EDT
Today marks the retirement of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an "event [that] invites us to celebrate his many accomplishments from which we have all benefited," said President Obama. "We will miss his insight and his activism, but will continue to learn from his example."
In 2009, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. America’s highest civilian honor -- the 2009 awardees were chosen for their work as agents of change. In a never-before-seen video interview from the event, Tutu discusses being a catalyst of change and realizing one's full potential
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...