Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp in 1931, trained as a teacher and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1960 after further study in London. In 1975 he became the first Black dean of St Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg, and in 1978 the first Black general secretary of the South African Council of Churches. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and became Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986. After apartheid ended, President Nelson Mandela appointed him to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which reported in 1998. He remained an outspoken critic of governments until his death in Cape Town in 2021.

Tutu is widely honored as a moral voice of the struggle against apartheid and as the person who popularized the idea of South Africa as a Rainbow Nation. Admirers credit him with keeping nonviolent resistance alive while political leaders were in prison or exile, and with guiding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. During apartheid, conservative white South Africans accused him of serving communism and opposed his call for sanctions, while some Black militants considered him too moderate. Thabo Mbeki accused the commission of criminalizing the ANC's armed struggle, and Tutu in turn criticized ANC governments over HIV/AIDS policy, corruption and conformity. Some Jewish groups and writers such as Alan Dershowitz accused him of antisemitism over remarks on Israel, which he compared to apartheid.