The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s body has reached St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, where he will be put on display for two days.
On Sunday, December 26, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who helped abolish apartheid in South Africa died at the age of 90.
After the lying-in-state period, his corpse will be laid to rest on January 1st, enabling people to file past his body and say their final farewell.
As Tutu’s humble wooden casket was taken into the cathedral, priests burned incense. As the coffin approached Tutu’s former parish, Leah, Tutu’s widow, slowly walked behind it.
Together with Mandela, he stood up against the white minority government’s prejudice against the black majority in South Africa.
Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his contribution to the struggle. He was best known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist.
Desmond Tutu formed his objective as “a democratic and just society without racial divisions”, and he set forward the following points as minimum demands:
1. equal civil rights for all
2. the abolition of South Africa’s passport laws
3. a common system of education
4. the cessation of forced deportation from South Africa to the so-called “homelands”
