Desmond Tutu
The outspoken bishop of humanity
"For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too. When you scratch us, we bleed. When you tickle us, we laugh."
"Never has a (Nobel) peace prize been so fitting," said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store after South African anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a leading figure in the anti-apartheid struggle and international defender of human rights and peace, died on Sunday aged 90.
Just five feet five inches (1.7 metres) tall and with an infectious giggle, Tutu was a moral giant who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his non-violent struggle against apartheid. He also helped to heal the deep wounds of a divided country by providing justice and mercy as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The buoyant, blunt-spoken clergyman used his pulpit as the first Black bishop of Johannesburg and later as the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town to galvanise public opinion against racial inequity, both at home and globally.
Talking and travelling tirelessly throughout the 1980s, Tutu became the face of the anti-apartheid movement while many of the leaders of the rebel African National Congress (ANC), such as Nelson Mandela, were behind bars.
But he never saw himself as a politician and regarded himself as a proxy during this period.
Despite efforts to silence him, he gave the anti-apartheid movement a guiding light at a time it would have otherwise been largely leaderless and was in danger of being taken over by angry young men.
The outspoken Tutu was considered South Africa's conscience by both Black and White, an enduring testament to his faith and spirit of reconciliation in a divided nation.
He preached against the tyranny of white minority and even after its end, he never wavered in his fight for a fairer South Africa, calling the black political elite to account with as much feistiness as he had the white Afrikaners.
On the global stage, the human rights activist spoke out across a range of topics, from Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories to gay rights, climate change and assisted death - issues that cemented Tutu's broad appeal.
In many conflicts, religious figures tend to incite their followers to extreme actions. In contrast, Tutu always invoked his moral authority to turn down the flame and calm a rowdy crowd.
He repeatedly condemned all violence as a means to end apartheid, which eventually ended in 1994. This position put him at odds with many Blacks, including Nelson Mandela's ANC, who argued that some forms of armed struggle were necessary to force the White government to change.
When Mandela and his fellow ANC leaders emerged from prison in 1990, Tutu stepped aside, just as he had always promised. Yet he remained a powerful moral voice.
Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO Sello Hatang recounted that Mandela and Tutu first met at a debating competition in the early 1950s and that four decades later, on the day when Mandela was released from prison, he spent his first night as a free man at the home of the Tutus in Bishopscourt, Cape Town.
Hatang said from then onwards until Mandela passed away in 2013 they were in regular contact and their friendship deepened over time.
It was Tutu who held aloft Madiba's hand on the balcony of Cape Town's City Hall on May 9, 1994 and presented him to the assembled throngs as the country's new "out of the box" president.
As head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Tutu and his panel listened to harrowing testimony about torture, killings and other atrocities during apartheid. At some hearings, Tutu wept openly.
"You are overwhelmed by the extent of evil," he said. But, he added, it was necessary to open the wound to cleanse it.
In return for an honest accounting of past crimes, the committee offered amnesty, establishing what Archbishop Tutu called the principle of restorative — rather than retributive — justice.
The commission's 1998 report lay most of the blame on the forces of apartheid, but also found the African National Congress guilty of human rights violations. The ANC sued to block the document's release, earning a rebuke from Tutu.
"I didn't struggle in order to remove one set of those who thought they were tin gods to replace them with others who are tempted to think they are," Tutu said.
The outspoken human rights defender kept his voice loud against mismanagements, brutality and corruption by the new leaders, including Mandela.
He was one of the first to raise voice against Mandela saying he was acting 'like an ordinary politician' when a row erupted over high salaries of cabinet ministers. He castigated the new ruling elite for boarding the "gravy train" of privilege and also chided Mandela for his long public affair with Graca Machel, whom he eventually married.
As Mandela reflected in that period: "His most characteristic quality is his readiness to take unpopular positions without fear ... He speaks his mind on matters of public morality. As a result, he annoyed many of the leaders of the apartheid system. Nor has he spared those that followed them — he has from time to time annoyed many of us who belong to the new order. But such independence of mind — however wrong and unstrategic it may at times be — is vital to a thriving democracy."
In his final years, he regretted that his dream of a "Rainbow Nation" had not yet come true. In 2014, he admitted he did not vote for the ANC, citing moral grounds.
Madiba and Tutu were both founding members of The Elders, an international grouping of inspirational leaders which has done human rights work in countries around the world.
A schoolteacher's son, Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, a conservative town west of Johannesburg, on Oct. 7, 1931.
Always a passionate student, Tutu first worked as a teacher. But he said he had become infuriated with the system of educating Blacks, once described by a South African prime minister as aimed at preparing them for their role in society as servants.
Tutu quit teaching in 1957 and decided to join the church, studying first at St. Peter's Theological College in Johannesburg. He was ordained a priest in 1961 and continued his education at King's College in London.
After four years abroad, he returned to South Africa, where his sharp intellect and charismatic preaching saw him rise through lecturing posts to become Anglican Dean of Johannesburg in 1975, which was when his activism started taking shape.
"I realised that I had been given a platform that was not readily available to many Blacks, and most of our leaders were either now in chains or in exile. And I said: 'Well, I'm going to use this to seek to try to articulate our aspirations and the anguishes of our people'," he told a reporter in 2004.
He was named the first Black Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, becoming the head of the Anglican Church. He would retain that position until 1996.
In retirement, he battled prostate cancer and largely withdrew from public life.
Tutu is survived by his wife of 66 years, Leah, and their four children.
Asked once how he wanted to be remembered, he told The Associated Press: "He loved. He laughed. He cried. He was forgiven. He forgave. Greatly privileged."