Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the cleric who became one of the most influential voices that ultimately helped bring down apartheid in South Africa and then pushed for reconciliation, died on Sunday in Cape Town. He was 90. His death was confirmed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who characterized Tutu as a “patriot without equal” and said the anti-apartheid icon was a “leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.” Tutu died of cancer, 24 years after he was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997.
For decades, Tutu became one of the main voices calling on the South African government to end apartheid. His voice was so powerful, first as leader of the South African Council of Churches and then as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, that he earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. With many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement behind bars, Tutu became one of the strongest voices against the regime abroad. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 after spending 27 years behind bars, he spent his first night of freedom at Tutu’s residence.
The decades-long oppressive regime against South Africa’s Black majority only ended years later and South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994, at which point Tutu emerged as a key leader in the transition. Mandela named Tutu chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he helped document some of the most horrific crimes of the regime. “You are overwhelmed by the extent of evil,” he said at one point. Despite the nature of the crimes, Tutu was a strong proponent of providing amnesty in return for an honest accounting of the past.
In later years, Tutu became a strong proponent for human rights around the world and took special interest in advocating for LGBT rights and marriage equality. Tutu said at one point he was “as passionate” about the campaign for LGBT rights as he “ever was about apartheid.” Domestically he ended up becoming disillusioned with the African National Congress, the anti-apartheid movement that came into power in 1994 when Mandela became president. In his final years, he publicly talked about his disappointment that his optimistic vision of a “rainbow nation” never came to pass.
Tributes poured in from around the world for the man who was commonly referred to as “The Arch.” “Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a mentor, a friend and a moral compass for me and so many others,” former President Barack Obama, who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, said. The Dalai Lama said he “cherished” the friendship he shared with Tutu, who “was entirely dedicated to serving his brothers and sisters for the greater common good.”
