Truth & Reconciliation: Healing the Wounds of Racism
The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s life as an activist for human rights. Those experiences taught her that the whole human family loses when we accept situations of oppression, and how the teaching and preaching of hate and division injure us all. In her speeches, Tutu blends this passion for human dignity with humor and personal stories.
Tutu is the third child of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. Born in South Africa, she has had the opportunity to live in many communities and countries. She was educated in Swaziland, the US, and England, and has divided her adult life between South Africa and the US. Growing up the “daughter of Desmond Tutu" has offered Naomi Tutu many opportunities and challenges in her life. Most important of these has been the challenge to follow her own path and role in building a better world. She has taken up the challenge and channeled the opportunities she has been given to raise her voice as a champion for the dignity of all.
Her professional experience ranges from serving as development consultant in West Africa to program coordinator for programs on race & gender and gender-based violence in education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. In addition Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford, University of Connecticut, and Brevard College in North Carolina. She served as program coordinator for the historic Race Relations Institute at Fisk University, and was a part of the Institute’s delegation to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban.
As well as speaking and preaching, Naomi Tutu has established Nozizwe Consulting. Nozizwe means “Mother of Many Lands” in Xhosa and is the name she was given by her maternal grandmother. The guiding principle of Nozizwe Consulting is to bring different groups together to learn from and celebrate their differences and acknowledge their shared humanity. As part of this work she has led truth and reconciliation workshops for groups dealing with different types of conflict.
Ms. Naomi Tutu’s Athenaeum's talk is co-sponsored by the PSR Initiative, Office of Civil Rights, and the President’s Leadership Fund.
Food for Thought: Podcast with Naomi Tutu