Archbishop Desmond Tutu. SJ Dodgson. MJoTA 2012 v5n2 p1020
In Feb 1986, I
stayed late after work at the University of Pennsylvania campus.
This
was unusual: I was married with 2 tiny boys at home, and I always wanted
to be with them when I was not writing papers or grant proposals or
coaxing activity out of my beloved gas mass spectrometer or clean
proteins out of my ion exchange columns in the Physiology lab where I was a research scientist with the title of Research Assistant Professor.
The reason for my staying late was an Anglican priest and activist known then as Bishop Desmond Tutu. He
was known as an ardent and vocal opponent of apartheid, and he came all the way to Philadelphia to tell us why apartheid was wrong.
Bishop Tutu, who later became an archbishop and head of the entire Anglican Church in South Africa, thrilled us all with his passionate
claims that we are all the children of God, God holds us all in the palm
of His Hand.
I am today asking myself if that talk was what put me on
my path to fighting media apartheid, which is what I do now. Every day. Like an ant pushing a boulder up a mountain.
