Human rights activist Naomi Tutu spoke to Ferris about injustice
Nontombi Naomi Tutu has been speaking out on matters of injustice for more than thirty years.
The Globalization Initiative and Office of Diversity Inclusion brought Tutu to speak at Ferris’ Williams Auditorium on Tuesday, March 2.
Tutu, an activist for human rights, grew up during apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a system of legal segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. White residents determined the rights of black residents during this period.
Being the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nomalizo Leah Tutu, Tutu said her parents were fortunate enough to send her to another country. She has lived in Lesotho, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Tutu has been speaking at college campuses about apartheid South Africa since the 1970s.
“I was raised in the system and people needed to know what was going on,” said Tutu.
The opportunity to travel was what pushed Tutu to speak out on the effects of racism and segregation, during apartheid and throughout the rest of the world.
Tutu said many “daily kinds of indignities” took place in the system. She said she was not allowed to be free in her own country.
“We didn’t have freedom of movement,” said Tutu. She said blacks had no access to beaches, as they were reserved for whites. Education systems were segregated as well.
She said that she would register at the police station in order to see her grandparents.
“You had a passport telling you where could go and where you could be,” she said.
Tutu uses the South African model of “Truth and Reconciliation” to speak of South Africa trying to heal after the apartheid. Truth and Reconciliation is the model of sitting down and hearing one another, said Tutu. She said it was specifically a South African model, but it’s an idea to be used in other countries.