Tutu encourages youth activism during Buhl Lecture

by Juanita I.C. Traughber, communications director

The Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu shared experiences from her childhood in apartheid South African and encouraged students to become politically engaged.
A conversation between the Rev. Naomi Tutu, daughter of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and community-based social justice activist Stephanie Brooks Barger focused on the power of youth political engagement in a contemporary context, giving listening High School students the opportunity to gleam gems from a daughter of the South African apartheid youth movement. 

Speaking during the annual Buhl Lecture, Tutu shared stories of attending boarding school in Swaziland and of her father having to register at the police station when they would visit her grandparents’ town in South Africa. Most of their discussion focused around the 1976 Soweto uprising in response to a law requiring that half of school lessons would be taught in Afrikaans, or in the words of her father, “the language of [black South Africans’] oppressor.” Many young people died during demonstrations, and June 16 has since become Youth Day in South Africa. She connected today’s youth movements to justice to that of her childhood experiences during the 1970s.

“If my knowledge of young people came strictly from the media, I would not have hope. We hear stories of a selfish generation and that the young people all want to be Kardashians and they love their technology and want to all take pictures of their food and put it on Instagram to make people jealous,” she said.

Yet she noted the determination of Generation Z. Reflecting on the Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives movements she added, “I see youth who say ‘We are going to do things that are important for making change in our community.’ Young people still believe they can make a change in the world. They have a greater sense of how much change one person, ten people, a hundred people can make. And they want to be that one person, or part of those ten people or hundred people. I am encouraged by the direction the movement is taking in your generation.”

In addition to civic engagement and community service, she also encouraged students to question elected officials, change those who don’t create laws they agree with by voting for others, and running for office themselves. She also let them know the importance of having strong support systems.

The Buhl Lecture Series began at USN in 2001 to honor the intellectual vitality of the late Arthur H. “Mike” Buhl, an esteemed USN faculty member. The purpose of the annual lecture is to honor Buhl’s commitment to a life of the mind and to inspire intellectual discourse among our High School students and faculty. This year’s lecture harnessed the spirit of the present youth voice, focusing on youth political engagement. At the conclusion of the lecture and Q&A, students gathered in their advisories to digest what they heard.
 
The Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and French from Berea College, a master’s degree in international economic development from the Patterson School at the University of Kentucky, and a Master of Divinity from the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University. Tutu founded the Tutu Foundation for Development and Relief, and has worked in and consulted for various organizations in roles focused on race relations, social justice, and human rights. Tutu has traveled extensively speaking about apartheid, race relations, and gender issues. Tutu has taught at the Universities of Hartford and Connecticut and at Brevard College in North Carolina. The third child of Archbishop Desmond and Leah Nomalizo Tutu, Naomi was born in 1960 in Krugersdorp, Soweto, South Africa.

Stephanie Barger earned a Bachelor’s degree in religion from Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., a Master of Divinity from the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, and a Master of Business Administration from Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University.
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