By William J. Barber, II
I first met Archbishop Desmond Tutu when I was a seminarian at Duke University in the 1980s, and I will never forget the question he asked us when he preached in the chapel that day: ‘Will you join God?’ Bishop Tutu knew the power of God to bring justice in this world, but he also knew that we must choose to join God in that work. Neutrality in the face of evil, he always insisted, is a choice to stand against God’s love and justice.
During my first pastorate in Virginia, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in South Africa and Doug Wilder was elected as the first African-American governor in Virginia, which still used the words ‘darkey,’ ‘missa’ and ‘massa’ in its state anthem. I remember watching Bishop Tutu dance with joy. When he began to lead the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I remember how both sides criticized him because he sought to have officers who had killed people tell the truth in front of the mothers of the victims.
Many people have celebrated Bishop Tutu as our conscience, but we must not forget how many people in power ignored his prophetic challenge while he lived. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival celebrates Tutu because he did not try to be a politician. Instead, he sought as a preacher to declare God’s truth in the public square. His conspicuous presence as a bishop, often in full vestments, made clear that the public sins of nations could not stand.
Like the prophet Ezekiel and Jesus, who minced no words with oppressors, Bishop Tutu told the truth, even when it was not readily accepted. When U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sided with South Africa’s apartheid regime and refused to support sanctions and boycotts, Bishop Tutu did not mince words: ‘the West,’ he proclaimed, ‘can go to hell and he described their as “utterly racist and totally disgusting.”
In 1986, the Los Angeles Times reported that Bishop Tutu ‘predicted that bitter, disillusioned blacks would increasingly turn away from peaceful protests, now that the United States and its allies have deprived them of the political leverage of international economic sanctions, and the result would be even greater violence and perhaps the racial civil war he has long warned against.’
Tutu charged that Reagan and Thatcher, along with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, were in effect telling South Africa’s 25 million blacks that ‘we are completely dispensable and can forget about help from them.’
Then he said President Pieter W. Botha, the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president of South Africa from 1984 to 1989,
‘must be overjoyed that he has such a wonderful public relations officer in the White House – he could not have written a better speech himself.’
This is the kind of love truth preachers must speak in the face of oppression. Truth is we need more of this in the world and the United States.
Those of us with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival had hoped that Bishop Tutu would join us on June 18th for the Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington. Now we will play a clip of his words to remember him and to recommit ourselves again to the principles of love, truth, justice and nonviolence.
Like all prophets, Bishop Tutu is honored best by those who commit to embrace love, justice and to bear witness to truth with the joy and determination he exhibited in his life here on earth.
