On Monday, cathedral bells tolled at midday in Cape Town as South Africa began a week of mourning for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Sunday.
As his country marks Tutu’s life and death, people around the world are doing the same, including many from groups he supported, from LGBTQ communities to Palestinians and climate justice advocates.
While Tutu was best known for helping to end decades of institutionalized segregation and racism in South Africa, and for heading the truth and reconciliation commission that came in its aftermath, he was also celebrated for lending his voice to other injustices and oppression globally.
LGBTQ advocacy
The respect Tutu had garnered as South Africa’s moral compass made him one of Africa’s most important LGBTQ allies.
Joni Madison, the interim President of the Human Rights Campaign — a prominent LGBTQ advocacy group — said Tutu’s “powerful allyship will never be forgotten.”
“We are forever grateful,” Madison tweeted.
Tutu was a vocal opponent of gender discrimination and supporter of the LGBTQ community. He was an active participant in the United Nations’ Free & Equal campaign and often compared the struggle of those singled out for their sexual orientation to apartheid.
In a 2007 interview with the BBC, he said: “If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn’t worship that God.” Years later he added, “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven … I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” referring to hell.
