Desmond Mpilo Tutu (b.1931) is a South African Anglican archbishop. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for promoting non-violent opposition to apartheid.
Born in Klerksdorp in the Province of the Transvaal, Tutu is the son of a primary school headmaster. He was educated at mission schools and training college before becoming a school teacher in 1954. After his ordination in 1960, he studied theology at King’s College, London, and lectured on the subject in South Africa. He became an Anglican parish priest in 1961 and rose rapidly to become Bishop of Lesotho 1976–78.
Tutu served as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches 1979–84, and, during this time, became South Africa’s most prominent opponent of apartheid, that country’s institution of racial discrimination. He recurrently risked imprisonment for his advocacy of punitive international sanctions against South Africa.
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Tutu became Johannesburg’s first black Anglican bishop in 1985 and was archbishop of Cape Town 1986–96, when he retired. He also chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (created to hear testimony on the apartheid era) 1995–99.
Tutu has published several collections of sermons, lectures, and speeches, including Crying in the Wilderness (1982,) Hope and Suffering (1983,) and The Rainbow People of God (1994.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Desmond Tutu
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said Let us pray. We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Deception/Lying
I wonder whether they have rum and Coke in Heaven?. Maybe it’s too mundane a pleasure, but I hope so—as a sundowner. Except, of course, the sun never goes down there. Oh, man, this heaven is going to take some getting used to.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Heaven
You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Family, God
I am fifty-two years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute—a white skin.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Racism
Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Racism
Without forgiveness, there’s no future.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Forgiveness
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Goodness, Kindness
I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Oppression
Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.
—Desmond Tutu
When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum.
—Desmond Tutu
Topics: Perseverance
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