Anti-Apartheid Leader and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu Dead at 90

Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who helped end apartheid in South Africa, died Sunday at 90. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed Tutu’s death in a statement early this morning.

“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Ramaphosa said. 

Ramaphosa continued, “Desmond Tutu was a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”

Tutu gained prominence in 1984, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent fight against apartheid in South Africa. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s, and in recent years was admitted to the hospital several times to treat infections associated with his cancer treatment. 

Former President Barack Obama said in a statement: “Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a mentor, a friend, and a moral compass for me and so many others. A universal spirit, Archbishop Tutu was grounded in the struggle for liberation and justice in his own country, but also concerned with injustice everywhere.”

Obama added, “He never lost his impish sense of humor and willingness to find humanity in his adversaries, and Michelle and I will miss him dearly.”