2007 Undergraduate Speaker
Naomi Tutu
The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa led Naomi Tutu on the path to become a passionate advocate for peace and human rights. Tutu is the daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu and his wife Nomalizo Leah Tutu. She has made it her life’s work to speak out about racial, gender and economic violence around the world.
An authority on race relations, Tutu founded and was the chairperson of the Tutu Foundation for Development and Relief in Southern Africa. From 1985 to 1990, the foundation helped South African refugees become self-supporting by providing them with scholarships, micro-business grants and practical resources. She has continued to work to improve educational and professional opportunities in Africa. She has served as a development consultant in West Africa and as a program coordinator at the University of Cape Town’s African Gender Institute.
Tutu is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant on gender, race and international relations. She has taught at the Universities of Hartford and Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina.
A single mother of three, Tutu says growing up the daughter of Desmond Tutu has offered her opportunities, as well as the challenge of finding her own place in the world. She has taken up that challenge by channeling her opportunities to raise her voice as a champion for the dignity of all. Her latest efforts have focused on fostering connections between women in the U.S. and South Africa through the Sister Sojourner Retreats, as well as helping organizations and community groups in the difficult discussions around race and racism through the Building Bridges workshops she co-leads with Ms. Rose Bator.
Tutu holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and French from Berea College, in Berea, Ky., and a master’s degree in international economic development from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky.
