Desmond Tutu - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid

History of South Africa in the apartheid era

Apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained...

. He was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town

Archbishop of Cape Town

The Archbishop of Cape Town is the Primate / Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.The current Archbishop is the Most Reverend Thabo MakgobaRobert Gray was the first Anglican Bishop of Cape Town.-List of Bishops and Archbishops:...

, South Africa and primate (bishop) of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Tutu has been active in the defence of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed.

Unanswered Questions

what was he famous for

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Quotations

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.

Guardian Weekly [London] (8 April 1984)

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

As quoted in New York Times|New York Times (19 October 1984)

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

As quoted in The Christian Science Monitor|The Christian Science Monitor (20 December 1984)

For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.

As quoted in The New York Times (3 January 1985)

When a pile of cups is tottering on the edge of the table and you warn that they will crash to the ground, in South Africa you are blamed when that happens.

As quoted in The New York Times (3 January 1985)

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

Today (NBC program)|Today, NBC TV (9 January 1985)

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

Quoted by L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley (politician)|Tom Bradley in letter to the editor Los Angeles Times (13 May 1985)

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)

God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd rather let us freely go to Hell than be compelled to go to Heaven.

Beyers Naudé memorial lecture (15 August 2003)

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