From prominent South African lawmakers to religious figures, many on social media honored Archbishop Tutu as a patriot of peaceful principles who dedicated his life to combating injustice everywhere.
Tributes from global and religious leaders, South Africans and prominent supporters from around the world flooded social media on Sunday after the death of Desmond M. Tutu. An oratorical force whose leadership helped abolish apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Tutu died at 90 in Cape Town. His stance of nonviolence in the anti-apartheid movement won him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. And he was a vocal advocate for peaceful reconciliation, guiding South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was charged with investigating the crimes of apartheid. His death was announced on social media by the office of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. The cause was cancer, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said. Mr. Ramaphosa called Archbishop Tutu “a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.” Archbishop Tutu used his position as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission “to reckon with oppressive pasts but also to hold the new democratic government accountable,” the Nelson Mandela Foundation said in a statement. “His contributions to struggles against injustice, locally and globally, are matched only by the depth of his thinking about the making of liberatory futures for human societies. He was an extraordinary human being. A thinker. A leader. A shepherd.” Thabo Makgoba, the archbishop of Cape Town, said in a statement that Archbishop Tutu’s “legacy is moral strength, moral courage and clarity.” “He felt with the people,” Archbishop Makgoba said. “In public and alone, he cried because he felt people’s pain.
