South African spiritual leader and campaigner Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in South Africa in 1931. He became the first coloured archbishop of the Anglican Church in Cape Town. Tutu studied the faith of the Anglican Church in London. He was a teacher at the University of Lesotho and worked in England for the World Council of Churches. In 1976, Archbishop Tutu protested against the Soweto race riots, comparing apartheid to Nazism and communism. After a protest rally, Tutu was arrested in 1980. Archbishop Tutu was president of the African Conference of Churches from 1987 to 1997.

‘Reconciliation over retribution’, that was Archbishop Tutu's motto. In his lifetime, he gave many sermons, suffered and struggled. In them, human beings were central. In South Africa, Archbishop Tutu focused on racial inequality and segregation, homophobia, HIV and AIDS, TB and poverty. Abroad, Archbishop Tutu spoke out on the situation in Palestine, among others, accusing Israel of war crimes in the Gaza Strip. In addition, he campaigned on behalf of the Dalai Lama, Myanmar freedom fighter Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, for women's rights and an early closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison in the United States. Archbishop Tutu also expressed his disagreement with the moral behaviour of some leaders. He died in 2021 in Cape Town, South Africa.