In 2000, Easton Press published a signed limited FIRST edition of Desmond Tutu’s “God Has a Dream” . This book was limited to only 1250 signed and numbered copies. Each one contained a COA, Certificate of Authenticity, and collector notes.
This rare book has appreciated quite considerably over the past 8 years. Current internet asking prices range from $600 to $1900.
We only have one copy remaining of this rare book. It’s a truly unique collector’s item and would make a great addition to your library. Order it now
The book is bound in genuine leather with gilt page edges. All of the quality that you have come to expect from the Easton Press has went into the design. A beautiful heirloom, this limited edition has already escalated greatly in value!
Few figures in today’s world are as revered and respected or possess such moral and spiritual authority as Archbishop Desmond Tutu. His tireless commitment to both justice and peaceful change earned him, in 1984, the Nobel Prize for Peace. In this great collector’s item, Archbishop Tute shares the ideas and beliefs which sustained him through decades of struggle and oppression. With his renowned grace and humor, he uses both historical and deeply personal examples to demonstrate how we can, as individuals and as a world, transform suffering into redemption.
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. Tutu was elected and ordained the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa). He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, and the Magubela prize for liberty in 1986. He is committed to stopping global AIDS and has served as the honorary chairman for the Global AIDS Alliance. In February 2007 he was awarded Gandhi Peace Prize by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, president of India.
He was generally credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation as a metaphor for post-apartheid South Africa after 1994 under African National Congress rule. The expression has since entered mainstream consciousness to describe South Africa’s ethnic diversity.
BACKGROUND
Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal on 7 October, 1931, the son of Zacheriah Zililo Tutu. Tutu’s family moved to Johannesburg when he was 12 years old. Although he wanted to become a physician, his family could not afford the training, and he followed his father’s footsteps into teaching. Tutu studied at the Pretoria Bantu Normal College from 1951 through 1953, and went on to teach at Johannesburg Bantu High School and at Munsieville High School in Pietermaritzburg. However, he resigned following the passage of the Bantu Education Act, in protest of the poor educational prospects for African South Africans. He continued his studies, this time in theology, at St Peter’s Theology College in Rosettenville and in 1960 was ordained as an Anglican minister.
Tutu then travelled to King’s College London, (1962?1966), where he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Theology. During this time he worked as a part-time curate, first at St Albans Cathedral and then at St. Mary’s in Bletchingley, Surrey. He later returned to South Africa and from 1967 until 1972 used his lectures to highlight the circumstances of the African population. He wrote a letter to Prime Minister Vorster, in which he described the situation in South Africa as a “powder barrel that can explode at any time.” The letter was never answered. He became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare in 1967, a hotbed of dissent and one of the few quality universities for African students in the southern part of Africa. From 1970 to 1972, Tutu lectured at the National University of Lesotho .
In 1972 Tutu returned to the UK, where he was appointed vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, at Bromley in Kent. He returned to South Africa in 1975 and was appointed Anglican Dean of Johannesburg?the first African person to hold that position.
In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, as a gesture of support for him and The South African Council of Churches which he led at that time.
In 1987 Tutu was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for ‘Peace on Earth.’
POLITICAL WORK
In 1976 protests in Soweto, also known as the Soweto Riots, against the government’s use of Afrikaans as a compulsory medium of instruction in black schools became a massive uprising against apartheid. From then on Tutu supported an economic boycott of his country. He vigorously opposed the “constructive engagement” policy of the Reagan administration in the United States, which advocated “friendly persuasion.”
Desmond Tutu was Bishop of Lesotho from 1976 until 1978, when he became Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches. From this position, he was able to continue his work against apartheid with agreement from nearly all churches. Tutu consistently advocated reconciliation between all parties involved in apartheid through his writings and lectures at home and abroad. Though he was most firm in denouncing South Africa’s white-ruled government, Tutu was also harsh in his criticism of the violent tactics of some anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress and denounced terrorism and Communism.
Tutu’s opposition was vigorous and unequivocal, and he was outspoken both in South Africa and abroad, often comparing apartheid to Nazism and Communism. As a result the government twice revoked his passport, and he was jailed briefly in 1980 after a protest march. It was thought by many that Tutu’s increasing international reputation and his rigorous advocacy of non-violence protected him from harsher penalties.
On 16 October 1984, Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee cited his “role as a unifying leader figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.”[2]
In 1985, Tutu was appointed the Bishop of Johannesburg before he became the first black person to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa on 7 September 1986. From 1987 to 1997 he was president of the All Africa Conference of Churches. In 1989 he was invited to Birmingham, England, United Kingdom as part of Citywide Christian Celebrations. Tutu and his wife visited a number of establishments including the Nelson Mandela School in Sparkbrook.
In 1990, Tutu and the ex-Vice Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape Professor Jakes Gerwel founded the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust. The Trust was established to fund developmental programmes in tertiary education and provides capacity building at 17 historically disadvantaged institutions. In 2001, the Trust, with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, launched the Desmond Tutu Footprints of the Legends Awards which recognises leadership in combating prejudice, human rights, research and poverty eradication.
In 1993, he was a patron of the Cape Town Olympic Bid Committee. In 1994 he was a appointed a patron of the World Campaign Against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, Beacon Millennium and Action from Ireland. In 1995 he became a patron of the American Harmony Child Foundation and the Hospice Association of Southern Africa.
After the fall of apartheid, he headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for which he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999. In 2000, he founded the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation to raise funds for the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town. In 2002, he launched the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation USA, which is designed to work with universities nationwide to create leadership academies emphasising peace, social justice and reconciliation.
In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court’s Trust Fund for Victims.
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