Desmond Tutu and the Nobel Peace Prize

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.”

Desmond Tutu and Jane Hanson

This quote from the great South African Bishop Desmond Tutu especially resonates with me for many reasons … not the least of which is I was with him the day he learned he’d won the Nobel Peace prize.   

He was in New York City on that day in 1984 --- and my NBC TV crew and I went to St Luke’s park in Lower Manhattan for an interview.    Midway through, we were stopped by his team --- which then told him he was being awarded that great honor.   The look on his face, the tears in his eyes, and the eloquence of his words will forever be in my mind.   I was in the presence of greatness that day, and it was truly a monumental moment in my career.  

Biographers talk of his “unrivaled role in drawing national and international attention to the iniquities of apartheid” and that he was a “key architect of reconciliation between black and white South Africans”    But to me on that day sitting on a park bench, he talked simply about perseverance --- about keeping hope when none seemed available.  And never giving up on what is right and just.   A true hero that I was privileged to meet .