From Seeds February 2022
Archbishop Desmond Tutu died on 26 December 2021 aged 90. However, he was already half that age before he became widely known as a fearless voice for justice and reconciliation.
He is remembered as a campaigner whose infectious laughter sometimes belied the steely faith and righteous anger that drove his words and actions. As a young teacher, he had
quit teaching in protest against a policy of segregated schools in South Africa. This decision, and the sense of freedom experienced while later studying in London, was instrumental
in grafting political and social activism onto the core of his faith.
It was the revolt and massacre of Soweto students in 1976 that finally drew him into the public sphere, aged ‘There comes a point where we need to stop pulling people out of the river’, he once wrote. ‘We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.’