"A person whose life is mapped onto a city my family knows."
My research topic is the life and work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021), focused specifically on his time in Cape Town, the city where he did his most important work.
My report focuses on three parts of Archbishop Tutu's story that all played out in Cape Town:
I chose Archbishop Tutu because he has a personal connection to my family in Cape Town. I was born in South Africa before my family moved to Ireland, and my mother attended St Cyprian's School in Cape Town, which is an Anglican girls' private school very close to the city centre.
Because Archbishop Tutu was the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, he was very involved with the school community. He was known for his warmth and engaging with students both in playful moments and moments of deep conversation. Tutu described the school as having achieved a "delicate balance" of excellence without elitism.
My Mom met him on many occasions while she was growing up. From the stories she told, he seemed like a very charismatic, lovable yet powerful, morally strong character that it made him feel like a real person to me, not just a name in a textbook.
What made me want to pick him for the CBA, though, was realising how much of his story is still visible if you walk through Cape Town today. His cathedral, St George's, is a five-minute walk from my Mom's old school.
In fact, the celebration of the school established in 1871, is held there every year too where the entire school marches through Cape Town down to St Georges Cathedral to a Church Service in Celebration of the school's birthday. People line the avenue to see the procession.
The City Hall balcony where Nelson Mandela gave his first speech as a free man on 11 February 1990 is in the same square.
Bishopscourt, where Tutu lived and where Mandela actually spent his very first night out of prison, is a short drive away. So I'm not just researching a famous person - I'm researching a person whose life is mapped onto a city my family knows.
As someone born in South Africa, I chose this topic to better understand the history of the country and the role individuals like Desmond Tutu played in shaping a more equal society.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu's life and work meet every test of historical significance: he was noticed worldwide in his own lifetime, he is still publicly commemorated in the city where he lived, his ideas about reconciliation continue to influence how countries deal with violent pasts, his work helped change South Africa from apartheid to democracy, and his story reveals what life under apartheid was actually like.
Tutu was noticed both at the time and afterwards, on a national and international level.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, which gave him a global platform during the worst years of apartheid.
In September 1986 he became the first Black man ever to be enthroned as Archbishop of Cape Town.
On 13 September 1989 he led the Cape Town Defiance March of around 30,000 people from St George's Cathedral to City Hall, an event so huge that the apartheid government, for the first time, didn't shoot.
When he died on 26 December 2021, world leaders sent tributes and his state funeral at St George's Cathedral on 1 January 2022 was a global news event.
Tutu is collectively remembered today, with commemorations on local, national and global levels.
In Cape Town, St George's Cathedral still runs free public tours, and his ashes are interred there with a small marker visitors can see.
Outside the cathedral stands "The Arch for the Arch", a 9-metre wooden archway unveiled on his 86th birthday on 7 October 2017, made of 14 timber strips representing the 14 chapters of South Africa's Constitution. This title very much fit his sense of humour and him being so down to earth. He was known fondly by the people of Cape Town as "The Arch".
The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, based in the Old Granary on Buitenkant Street, archives his sermons and papers and is open to the public.
Internationally, he is still taught about in schools (including in my CBA), and his books are still in print.
Tutu's work still has meaning and relevance today, and connects directly to modern issues.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission model he chaired has been studied and adapted by other countries dealing with violent pasts, including Rwanda after the genocide and Northern Ireland after the Troubles.
His phrase "Rainbow Nation", first used in his speech on the City Hall steps in 1989, is still part of how South Africa describes itself.
The Tutu Legacy Foundation runs leadership programmes for young South Africans today, teaching the values he stood for, especially reconciliation, dignity and human rights.
These values all still matter when we look at racism, inequality and conflict around the world.
Tutu's actions had real consequences for the future and changed the course of South African history.
His campaigning for international sanctions, organised partly from meetings with foreign diplomats at his Bishopscourt residence, helped put pressure on the apartheid government.
He was central to the peaceful transition that ended apartheid, symbolised by Nelson Mandela spending his very first night of freedom on 11 February 1990 at Bishopscourt with the Tutus.
As Chair of the TRC, he helped South Africa move from a divided, violent past to a democracy without descending into civil war, and his work shaped the new South African Constitution that the Arch for the Arch monument celebrates today.
Tutu's story gives real insight into what life in apartheid-era South Africa was like.
The fact that Bishopscourt, his official residence as Archbishop, was in a historically White-only neighbourhood where Black families weren't even allowed to visit without permits, reveals how deeply racial segregation was built into Cape Town itself.
The way St George's Cathedral became "the People's Cathedral" (because the government banned political meetings but couldn't ban church services) shows how creative people had to be just to protest.
And the lesson it teaches us today is the power of moral leadership and non-violent resistance. That one person, using words from a pulpit, can help change a whole country.
Archbishop Tutu was historically significant for many reasons but I have chosen three of the biggest reasons to focus on, and Cape Town is at the centre of all of them.
Apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced by the South African government from 1948 until the early 1990s, where people were classified by race and Black and Coloured South Africans were denied basic rights.
First, he was one of the most important voices of the Anti-Apartheid Movement at a time when other leaders were silenced. When he was enthroned at St George's Cathedral in September 1986, he was the first Black man ever to be Archbishop of Cape Town. This was already a symbolic blow against apartheid.
From 1985 to 1989, when the government banned political meetings, Tutu used the rule that you couldn't ban church services, so St George's became known as "the People's Cathedral." Protests turned into funerals, funerals turned into services, and the cathedral became a loophole the regime couldn't close.
On 13 September 1989, he led the Cape Town Defiance March of 30,000 people from the cathedral steps to City Hall, where he addressed the crowd from the balcony and called South Africans "the rainbow people of God" - the phrase that later became "Rainbow Nation."
Second, his Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 brought international attention to apartheid at a crucial moment. The award gave him a global platform he used to push for sanctions.
From his residence at Bishopscourt (a house in a historically White-only neighbourhood where, under apartheid, a Black family wouldn't even have been allowed to visit without permits) he met with foreign diplomats to coordinate the international pressure.
When Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990, his very first night of freedom in 27 years was spent at Bishopscourt with the Tutus, which shows just how central Tutu had become to the transition.
Thirdly, after apartheid ended, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was a brand new way of dealing with the crimes of a violent past.
Instead of putting everyone on trial, the TRC let victims tell their stories publicly and offered amnesty to people who confessed honestly.
Many of its most important hearings were held in Cape Town, and the model has since been studied and adapted by other countries recovering from conflict, including Rwanda and Northern Ireland.
Today, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, run from the Old Granary on Buitenkant Street - a building that used to be a colonial-era women's prison - keeps that work alive.
Tutu liked that a place built for cruelty had been turned into a place for repair.
His legacy is so tied to Cape Town that when he died on 26 December 2021, his funeral was held at St George's Cathedral and his ashes were interred there - back where the story really began.
Just outside the cathedral stands "The Arch for the Arch", a wooden archway unveiled on his 86th birthday in 2017, made of 14 timber strips that each represent a chapter of South Africa's Constitution.
Most heroes get a statue you look up at. Tutu got an arch you walk through.
My Mom says it is fitting as even his monument refuses to put him on a pedestal, which says a lot about the kind of person he was.
Humble, yet powerful. Charismatic, lovable and an absolute legend of a man that changed our country's history forever.
(and why I want those questions answered)
Lots of people fought apartheid in different ways (some peacefully, some not).
Understanding why Tutu chose peaceful protest, sermons, and economic sanctions instead of violence helps explain what made him different from leaders like Nelson Mandela in the early years.
The Nobel Prize put a giant international spotlight on apartheid at a time when the South African government was trying to silence Tutu. I want to show how one award can shift world opinion and put pressure on a whole government.
By focusing on the Nobel Peace Prize, I could look deeper into Desmond Tutu’s story instead of only looking at the basic facts. Winning the prize became an important turning point because it helped lead to many of the major things he did afterwards. It also helped me ask more questions about his role in changing South Africa and inspiring people around the world. See what further questions I asked and read more about this pivotal moment under my “Focus on Nobel Prize” section.
The TRC was a really unusual idea. Instead of putting people on trial, it asked them to confess publically. I want to explore whether forgiveness can actually work as justice, and Tutu was the person who shaped that whole approach.
Cape Town wasn't just where Tutu worked - it was the site of huge protest marches, the home of Robben Island (where Mandela was imprisoned), and the city where apartheid laws were debated in parliament.
It puts Tutu in the middle of all the action.
Tutu actually invented the famous phrase "Rainbow Nation" to describe a new, post-apartheid South Africa where every race belonged.
It's a powerful idea that's still used today, and it came straight from his Cape Town speeches.