The Rainbow People of God; The Making of a Peaceful Revolution

New York: Doubleday, 1994. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxii, 281, [1] pages. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Bookplate signed by the author (Desmond Tutu). Foreword by Nelson Mandela. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the dedicated spokesman for the anti-apartheid movement; John Allen is a journalist who became the archbishop's media secretary. Letters, sermons, and other moving documents written by the Nobel Prize-winning Archbishop of Capetown--together with connecting narrative by journalist John Allen--provide a firsthand history of his long, courageous leadership of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement. This chronologically arranged collection of speeches, writings, and letters by Nobelist Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, offers some gripping primary source material from the battle against apartheid. In the first selection of the volume, a letter dated May 6, 1976, Tutu, then dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg, asks Prime Minister John Vorster, ``How long can a people, do you think, bear such blatant injustice and suffering?'' The book ends with a prayer given by Tutu at Nelson Mandela's inauguration as the South African president on May 10, 1994. What emerges is a documentary history (albeit in only one voice) of the protracted death of apartheid and an affirmation of nonracial democracy by a man whose political acts are emphatically motivated by his Christian faith. John Allen is a writer and editor . He worked for Archbishop Tutu for 13 years, as his press secretary, then as communications director of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and finally in Tutu's office at Emory University in Atlanta. Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH GCStJ (7 October 1931 - 26 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology. Tutu was born of mixed Xhosa and Motswana heritage to a poor family in Klerksdorp, South Africa. Entering adulthood, he trained as a teacher and married Nomalizo Leah Tutu, with whom he had several children. In 1960, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and in 1962 moved to the United Kingdom to study theology at King's College London. In 1966 he returned to southern Africa, teaching at the Federal Theological Seminary and then the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. In 1972, he became the Theological Education Fund's director for Africa, a position based in London but necessitating regular tours of the African continent. Back in southern Africa in 1975, he served first as dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg and then as Bishop of Lesotho; from 1978 to 1985 he was general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches. He emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation and white minority rule. Although warning the National Party government that anger at apartheid would lead to racial violence, as an activist he stressed nonviolent protest and foreign economic pressure to bring about universal suffrage. In 1985, Tutu became Bishop of Johannesburg and in 1986 the Archbishop of Cape Town, the most senior position in southern Africa's Anglican hierarchy. In this position, he emphasized a consensus-building model of leadership and oversaw the introduction of female priests. Also in 1986, he became president of the All Africa Conference of Churches, resulting in further tours of the continent. After President F. W. de Klerk released the anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990 and the pair led negotiations to end apartheid and introduce multi-racial democracy, Tutu assisted as a mediator between rival black factions. After the 1994 general election resulted in a coalition government headed by Mandela, the latter selected Tutu to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses committed by both pro and anti-apartheid groups. Following apartheid's fall, Tutu spoke out on a wide range of subjects, among them his criticism of South African presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, and his opposition to the Iraq War. In 2010, he retired from public life. Tutu was internationally praised for his work involving anti-apartheid activism, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize and other international awards. He also compiled several books of his speeches and sermons.