The South African Anglican archbishop who became the moral voice of the struggle against apartheid and then the conscience of the democracy that followed — a Nobel Peace laureate who named apartheid a sin and a heresy, gave the world the image of the 'Rainbow Nation,' chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's contested attempt to trade truth for amnesty, and never stopped speaking uncomfortable truths to power, Black and white alike, to the end of his life.
When most of South Africa's political leaders were jailed or in exile, the loudest internal voice against apartheid belonged to a small, bald, often laughing Anglican priest. Desmond Tutu had no army and no party. He had a pulpit, a clerical collar, and a conviction that apartheid was not merely unjust but a sin against God. He used that to shame a government, push the world toward sanctions, and win a Nobel Peace Prize. Then, when liberation came, he turned the same uncomfortable honesty on the liberators — and lost some friends doing it.