Event Date:
Start at 12:00 AMOctober 24, 2023
Many top speakers have delivered the L’Hommedieu Lecture since it was established some 40 years ago in 1983, honoring Frances Bradley L’Hommedieu ’26. From best-selling authors and Pulitzer Prize recipients to innovative leaders, this free lecture is open to Douglass alumnae, our AADC community, the Rutgers community and the public.
Race and gender justice activist the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu will deliver the 2023 L’Hommedieu Lecture on campus this fall.
She is an Episcopal priest who most recently was Associate Rector at All Saints, Beverly Hills, California. The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of Naomi’s life as an activist for human rights. Those experiences taught her that our whole human family loses when we accept situations of oppression, and how teaching and preaching hate and division injures us all.
Rev. Tutu is the third child of Archbishop Desmond and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. She was born in South Africa and had the opportunity to live in many communities and countries. She was educated in Swaziland, the US and England, and has divided her adult life between South Africa and the US. Growing up the “daughter of …” has offered Naomi Tutu many opportunities and challenges in her life. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges she has struggled with is the call to ministry. This call refused to be silenced, even as she carried her passion for justice into other fields, the call to preach and serve as an ordained clergyperson continued to tug at her. Finally, in her 50’s she responded to the call and went to seminary.
Her professional experience ranges from being a development consultant in West Africa to being program coordinator for programs on Race and Gender and Gender-based Violence in Education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. In addition, Rev. Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford, University of Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina. She served as Program Coordinator for the historic Race Relations Institute at Fisk University and was a part of the Institute’s delegation to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban.
