Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu was born on October 7th, 1931 in Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa. He is now 78 years old, and a survivor of prostate cancer. Tutu is a South Africa Cleric and a Human Rights Activist who rose to fame in the 1980’s by opposing legal racial segregation. Racial segregation is the separation of different kinds of humans into racial groups. Tutu was also the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu is very vocal in his defense of human rights and uses his fame to campaign for the oppressed. Desmond Tutu is the only son of Zacheriah and Aletta Tutu, and has two sisters. His father was a teacher and his mother was a cleaner and a cook at a school for the blind. Tutu’s family moved to Johannesburg when he was twelve. There he met his idol, Trevor Huddleston, in the slums of South Africa. Tutu said, “One day, I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in priest’s clothing walked past. As he passed us, he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn’t believe my eyes- a white man who greeted a black working class woman!” Tutu went to school for teaching, and was a teacher till they passed the Bantu Education Act, which was where they passed racial segregation in school. He then decided to become a human rights activist. He then went on to get his master’s in theology. Tutu was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. On July 2, 1955, he married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a teacher that he had met in college. They had four children, named Trevor, Theresa, Naomi, and Andrea. Naomi and Andrea followed in their father’s footsteps. Naomi founded the Tutu Foundation for development and relief in Southern Africa and she is also a program coordinator for the Race Relations Institute in Tennessee. Andrea was ordained a priest in 2004 by her father. She is also the founder and director of Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage,

Cited: Wikipedia. “Desmond Tutu” Web. 30 June, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu