Desmond Tutu, born in Klerksdorp in the Transvaal Province in 1931, was an only son with two sisters. His Mother worked as a cleaner and although Desmond dreamed of becoming a physician, his family could not afford the cost for him to train so he chose to become a teacher like his Father.
After studying for two years at the Bantu Normal College in Pretoria, Desmond Tutu began teaching at Johannesburg Bantu High School and then at Munsieville High School, Krugersdorp. When the Bantu Education Act was passed – a law that enforced segregation in education with whites getting free education and the Blacks, Indians and Coloureds having to pay for their education and the government having the authority to decide on the syllabus, the knowledge of the bleak educational future for Blacks caused him to resign from teaching in protest. However, Tutu resumed his own studies and began to study Theology at St Peter’s Theology College in Rosettenville. He was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church in 1960.
After this, Desmond Tutu went to England and continued studying at King’s College in London and at the same time working as a part-time curate in two different churches. In 1967, after returning to South Africa, Tutu worked at the University Of Fort Hare as a Chaplain in the Federal Theological Seminary. Tutu gave lectures at the National University of Lesotho between 1970 and 1972.
After the Soweto uprising in 1976 which began as a protest against the Blacks being forced to study only in Afrikaans and English and endidng in bloodshed, Desmond Tutu became a strong supporter of economic boycotts against South Africa. After serving for two years from 1976 as Bishop of Lesotho, in 1978 the South African Council of Churches made him their Secretary-General. This gave him the opportunity to vibrantly pursue, with the endorsement of nearly all churches, his battle against apartheid.
Desmond Tutu was the recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 1984. In 1986 Desmond Tutu was made Archbishop of Cape Town for the Anglican Church and was in charge of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid ended in South Africa. It has been said that Archbishop Desmond Tutu conceived the expression “Rainbow Nation” to describe post-apartheid South Africa.