Desmond Tutu’s Origin Story

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            Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 and grew up under Apartheid in South Africa.1 This was a system of segregation that ensured that whites maintained political and economic control of the country. Just about everything was segregated, Black men needed a special pass to work or travel through white areas, and mixed relationships were illegal. It was an oppressive system that led to forcible evictions, countless needless arrests, and outbursts of violence (both for and against Apartheid).2

            Tutu was born into a poor family and he had always been sickly. He survived a bout of polio, some pretty severe burns, and a bout of tuberculosis that put him in the hospital for 18 months. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that at the age of twenty, he wanted to study medicine. He was even accepted at university, but the school was too expensive for his family.3 As he journeyed through his life, it made sense to him that he should be a doctor – to help others, but that was not where his life went.

            So, he decided to become a teacher – an amazing way to serve your community and make the world a better place. He met his wife at school and began his career. But, in 1953, the government passed the Bantu Education Act, which intensified segregation within the educational system. Blacks were in totally separate schools and their education was focused on making them laborers. Tutu and his wife did not want to work within such a system and decided they couldn’t be teachers any more.4 It had seemed like the right way to journey, but the path took a turn. 

            It was at that point that Tutu began to discern his call to the ministry, bolstered by a particular priest who had long since been very supportive of him. In 1956, he tried to begin the process, but they rejected him because he carried too much debt. You would think that his journey would turn yet again, but a philanthropist decided to pay Tutu’s debts. Tutu excelled in school, but he was not really involved in activism. He and his classmates thought of themselves as apolitical and focused mainly on their studies. In 1960, Tutu was ordained as a priest. In 1962, something surprising happened. Many in the white leadership of the Anglican church began to feel like there should be more Black African leaders in their denomination. So, it was suggested that Tutu could train in theology at King’s College London. This poor, sickly child is suddenly being courted to travel and learn on an international scale.5 Who would have imagined?

            When he and his family lived in London, it was the first time they had ever lived outside of the system of Apartheid. He didn’t need a special pass to travel. This country had freedom of speech and more shared spaces. During those years, Tutu was exposed to an entirely new way of living, of thinking, of being in society. He let go of a lot of his bitterness; he came to see on a visceral level that he was not less than anyone else – that no one deserved to be subject to Apartheid. He let go of long-standing habits of deference and passivity.6  It was only because he was not a doctor, not a teacher, not an apolitical priest that he could start to see a new vision of bringing the kingdom of heaven to life in his own home.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu           

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