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South African Archbishop and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu will be the spring speaker in the Sacerdote Great Names Series at Hamilton College.

Tutu will deliver a free public lecture on Tuesday, April 11, 2000, in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is also scheduled to speak at Hamilton this year as part of the Sacerdote Series. She will visit the campus on Thursday, Dec. 9, for a 7 p.m. lecture. Additional information for both events will be forthcoming.

Tutu and Thatcher will join retired General Colin Powell, Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, jazz great B.B. King, former South African President F.W. DeKlerk and political commentators Mary Matalin and James Carville as participants in the Great Names series. The series was recently renamed the Sacerdote Great Names Series in recognition of a significant gift from the family of Alex Sacerdote, a 1994 Hamilton graduate.

Tutu has been one of the leading figures in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. He was elected Bishop of Lesotho in 1975. By that time, South Africa was in the wake of the 1976 Soweto uprising and deep in turmoil. Tutu was persuaded to leave Lesotho and assume the post of general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC). It was in this position, a post he held from 1978-1985, that Bishop Tutu became a national and international figure.

A subsidiary of the World Council of Churches, the SACC is committed to the cause of ecumenism and to fulfilling the social responsibility for the church. Justice and reconciliation are its chief priorities. Under Tutu's direction, the SACC became a vital institution in South African spiritual and political life, voicing the ideals of millions of South Africans Christians. Tutu's leadership helped establish the council as an effective machinery providing assistance to the victims of apartheid and inevitably, placed the Archbishop deep within the controversy as he spoke out against the injustice of the system. In 1984, Tutu's contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa was recognized when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tutu spent the next five years working to bridge the chasm between black and white Anglicans in South Africa as Bishop of Johannesburg and later as Archbishop of Cape Town. His election demonstrated the Anglican Church's faith and trust in his spiritual leadership, as well as his ability to pursue racial justice.

Currently, Tutu is Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape. He holds honorary degrees from numerous universities, including Harvard, Oxford, Columbia, the Ruhr, Kent and Aberdeen. In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he has received the Order for Meritorious Service Award, presented by President Nelson Mandela, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Award for outstanding service to the Anglican Communion, the Family of Man Gold Medal Award and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Non-Violent Peace Prize.

In 1995 Mandela appointed Archbishop Tutu to head the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 1998 the commission submitted its first official report to Mandela, marking yet another significant step in the struggle for justice both in South Africa and the world. Tutu retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, but was named Archbishop Emeritus later that year. The author of four collections of sermons and addresses, Tutu is now working on two new books, one chronicling the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the other, transfiguration.

Tutu earned a teaching diploma and bachelor's degree from the University of South Africa. After he was ordained to the priesthood in 1961, he went to London where he obtained a Bachelor of Divinity Honors and Master of Theology degree while acting as a part-time curate. Returning to South Africa in 1967, Tutu became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare and later moved to the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland in 1970, where he held the post of lecturer in the department of theology. Tutu would also return to England to serve as the associate director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, based in Kent.

Tutu currently resides in Atlanta and is the Robert W. Woodruff Visiting Professor at Emory University.

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