Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born to a poor family who stayed in Klerksdorp in South Africa on 7th of October 1931. He was of a mixed Xhosa and Motswana heritage. During his early adulthood, he trained as a teacher. In 1955, he got married to Nomalizo Leah Shenxane. Tutu was appointed as an Anglican priest in 1960. In 1962 he moved to United Kingdom to study theology at the King's College London.
After returning to Africa, he taught at the Federal Theological Seminary, South Africa and the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. Later he headed a number of different religious institutions. In 1985, Tutu became the Bishop of Johannesburg and in 1986 the Archbishop of Cape Town, the most senior position in southern Africa's Anglican hierarchy. On Sunday, the 26th of December, Desmond Tutu breathed his last.
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His death was confirmed by the office of South Africa's President, Cyril Ramaphosa, who called the archbishop "a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead".
He was one of the prominent people who opposed South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation. After Nelson Mandela, another anti-apartheid activist was released from prison in 1990, Tutu and he led negotiations to end apartheid and introduce multi-racial democracy. After 1994, the archbishop was selected to head the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' to investigate past human rights abuses committed by both pro and anti-apartheid groups.
With his rise, he received a lot of backlashes. The white conservatives who supported the apartheid despised him and some of the white liberals thought that he was way too radical. On the other hand, a number of black radicals accused him of being too moderate and focused on cultivating white goodwill.
Desmond Tutu received a lot of accolades and was praised internationally for his anti-apartheid activism. The most prestigious one of those awards was the Noble Peace Prize, which he received in 1984, for being "one of the world's most effective champions for human rights".
After the Apartheid, Desmond Tutu campaigned for gay rights. He spoke out on a wide variety of subjects, expressed his opposition to the Iraq War, and also extended his support to Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Under his leadership, female priests were being introduced.
(Keywords : Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, apartheid, South Africa, white, black, racist, Africa, liberal, radical, Nobel Peace Prize, human rights, Archbishop, Christianity, religion.)