Desmond Tutu
- Lived
- 1931–2021
- Era
- Twentieth century and after
- Where
- South Africa
- Tradition
- Anglican
Truth and Reconciliation
A South African schoolteacher who left teaching when the state gutted Black education, became a priest, and as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town was one of the few Black leaders not in prison or exile during the worst years of apartheid — and used the position to say what others could not.
Why it matters
He argued for sanctions when that was a criminal offence to advocate, and physically waded into crowds to stop necklacings, insisting the movement would not become what it opposed. He chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after 1994, which offered amnesty in exchange for full public disclosure — a bargain that has been criticised from both directions and that probably prevented a civil war. He was as critical of the ANC in government as he had been of the National Party, and of his own church over its treatment of gay people.
In the record
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1970–2026 AD Migration
The centre of gravity shifts
Chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the church's new centre of gravity
All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.