By Monsignor Noel C. Burtenshaw

She looks like she might be the perfect companion to her famous husband. This African woman sits quietly in front of the Atlanta media and gently but firmly answers their searching questions.

She is Leah Tutu, the wife of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Episcopal Bishop of Johannesburg in South Africa. Mrs. Tutu was visiting Atlanta last week and spoke with many groups in the city.

“We are grateful for the support we are receiving from the American public” she said most genuinely, “but we need great pressure from your government on the government of South Africa. Economic sanctions may bring more hardship to the black community, but it will also bring hardship to the white. We need that kind of pressure to add to what we are doing.”

She went on. “We are doing a lot. We do not see that we will go back. There is no going back now. We want our proper place, fully free in the South African society--our nation.”

Asked what is the most effective action blacks have taken to oppose the system of apartheid, Mrs. Tutu said without hesitation “the black boycott of white business has been our most effective protest. Stores have been hurt but black communities have experienced the anger of the police because of this protest.”

Mrs. Tutu, who has joined her husband in peaceful protests against apartheid, commented on the recent statements of the fundamentalist minister, Rev. Jerry Falwell. “Mr. Falwell stated that black officials have objected to economic sanctions. Well, apartheid has black faces too. Look at our police, many of them are non-white and there are resentments along the oppressed black communities about them. Oh yes, apartheid has black faces too.”

Leah Tutu is the director of the Domestic Workers’ Employee Project in Johannesburg. This organization advocates for and supports the rights of domestic workers, who are predominantly black women. Leah Tutu’s mother was a domestic worker. Under South African law domestic workers are not permitted to unionize, despite the fact that they work 10 and 14 hour days and, like South African black men, are prohibited by their employer from joining their families once the work day is over.

Leah Tutu was born on Oct. 14, 1932 in the town of Krugersdorp where she spent most of her life. Krugersdorp is located in the Transvaal area of South Africa. She married Desmond Tutu in 1955. Together they have four children, Naomi, Trevor, Thandeka, Mpou. For two decades after her marriage, Leah Tutu traveled with her family and worked closely with her husband, Bishop Desmond Tutu. Leah Tutu is a teacher by profession and trained for a period of time in the field of nursing.

Leah Tutu was reminded that some would hold that the new South Africa would be a communist state. “Let me say first of all that communism is a white thing. I do not believe or see any evidence that blacks are waiting to become communists. However, at the moment we are being governed by a white government that calls itself Christian. Just look at the treatment we received in the name of Christianity. If we were to choose communism, then as long as its chosen freely and democratically by a majority of our people, surely, it is their right to do so.”

Mrs. Tutu continued on this point to say that “those nations who say we will become communists if we get majority rule say so in order to continue their present investment in cheap black suffering.”

Quietly this gentle woman voiced the suffering of the black people of her nation. She spoke about the pass laws, which kept blacks in check. She appealed to the American youth to remember that South African youths have no freedoms. She urged young Americans to “act in government” to change systems of segregation. She asked all Americans to put pressure on the U.S. government to speak out on behalf of the “rightless” people of South Africa.

There were also questions about Christian denominations’ support of the black cause in South Africa. “Well,” responded Mrs. Tutu without hesitation, “the whites of South Africa are for the most part Christian. Some leaders help and speak. For example, Archbishop Hurley of Durban has been an exceptional opponent of apartheid but he is only one. In the past, there has been little help from others.”

The problem of South Africa is liberation. Leah Tutu made this point clear. “We need jobs, basic human rights, minimum wages, education, and end to cheap labor practices. We need all these things in our country but the greatest need of all is liberation. That now must come first.”

Mrs. Tutu spoke to the student body at Morehouse College and was greeted by all the city leadership. She was a guest in her speaking tour of the American Friends Service Committee.