Ninety-five years after Archbishop Desmond Tutu was born, the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation is asking South Africans and the world to do more than remember him.
Today, the Foundation launches TUTU95: United for Humanity, a programme of events and collaborations building towards what would have been Archbishop Tutu’s 95th birthday on 7 October.
“Archbishop Tutu never saw humanity as an abstract idea. For him, our humanity existed in relationship with one another, and that came with responsibility,” says Janet Jobson, CEO of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. “TUTU95 is grounded in his belief that our humanity is bound together and that dignity, justice, courage, compassion and reconciliation remain urgently relevant today.”
“As we approach the commemoration of his 95th birthday, TUTU95 asks us to look at the world around us and ask: what does our shared humanity require of us now?”
The campaign launches alongside WOMAD South Africa 2026, bringing the World of Music, Arts and Dance together with the Foundation around a shared commitment to cultural unity and connection.
The collaboration includes the Desmond Tutu United 4 Humanity Peace Concert at Artscape Theatre on 19 September, bringing South African and international musicians, dancers and performers together in celebration of peace, reconciliation and inclusion.
Jobson says that there is something profoundly Tutu about bringing people from different countries, cultures and experiences into the same space and allowing art to remind us of one another’s humanity.
Wearing the message
The Arch’s words and values will also be carried into everyday life through a collaboration between Pick n Pay Clothing, the Foundation and South African designer Gavin Rajah, with three limited-edition T-shirts available at Pick n Pay Clothing stores nationwide.
Rajah chose the rose as a design emblem to capture the Arch’s warmth and humanity alongside his formidable strength. “He was looked upon as a symbol which was very delicate, very caring, loving and in some way a great humanitarian, but beneath that surface was also a very tough man,” says Rajah.
Hazel Pillay, Group Executive at Pick n Pay Clothing adds: “The collaboration is an opportunity to honour one of South Africa’s most remarkable sons, a man whose courage, compassion, joy and unwavering belief in our shared humanity helped shape our country and inspired people across the world.”
“The Arch belonged to people and there is something powerful about taking his words and values into everyday life and giving South Africans a way to carry that message with them,” says Jobson. “These T-shirts carry a commemoration that opens into a question about what it means to choose humanity today.”
Sales of the collection will contribute to the Foundation’s work, helping carry the Arch’s legacy to future generations.
The Peace Lecture
TUTU95 culminates on 7 October with the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture, delivered this year by the Most Reverend Dame Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to hold the office.
Further TUTU95 activity includes the Tutu Talks podcast and development of the Tutu Peace Park, with a sod-turning at Lupin Park taking place on the campaign launch day.
“The Peace Lecture exists to bring the moral questions he cared about into conversation with the world as it is now, as we are living through a time of extraordinary division,” concludes Jobson. “The Arch offered us a radically different proposition, that we owe our very selves to one another. Ninety-five years after his birth, that idea does not belong to history. It may be one of the ideas we need most urgently now.”