Fall of 2013. Desmond Tutu’s visit to London

Desmond Tutu

My friends from the International Office of the Order of St John in Jerusalem in London shared with me some information about Desmond Tutu visiting them in the fall of this year.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931, in Klerksdorp, TransvaalProvince) — is an Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (the first black bishop in South Africa), active opponent of apartheid. He received the Noble Peace Prize in 1984.

Desmond Tutu was born in Klerksdorp in the region of gold mines; he was second of the three children and the only son. When he was twelve, his family moved to Johannesburg. His father worked as a teacher, and his mother – as a cook and cleaning lady at a school for the blind.

Although he dreamed to be a doctor, his family could not afford an expensive education. Following the footsteps of his father, he became a teacher. He taught in college and at school. However, due to the worsening of the apartheid policy and passing the laws that legally enforced the inequality of education rights for the white and for the black population in South Africa, he quit his job.

Desmond Tutu started to learn theology and in 1960, he became an Anglican priest. In this status one of his first positions was at the University of Fort Hare – the only university for the black at that time in South Africa. Later he continued to study, lived for some time in UK, where he was a parish chaplain.