UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Join Penn State's Africana Research Center for the Nelson Mandela Lecture with Naomi Tutu from 6 to 7 p.m. on Monday, March 20, in Board Room 1 of the Nittany Lion Inn.
Tutu, a human-rights advocate, will present a lecture titled "Truth and Reconciliation: Healing the Wounds of Racism."
Using South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a starting place and model, in this presentation Tutu talks about how we can heal and be healed as individuals and a society: "Whether in personal life or the larger society, we have wounds that block our ability to be the wonderful gifts that we are meant to be in the world. We too have inflicted wounds unto others, but all these wounds can be healed. However, it takes courage and the willingness to speak and hear the truth. That first step to healing is so often the hardest. We are afraid to speak our truth for fear of judgment, rejection and anger. We are also afraid to hear truths that might question our images of ourselves. Yet the pain is only the first step, what comes after that is healing and wholeness."
Tutu is the third child of Archbishop Desmond and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. She was born in South Africa and has also lived in Lesotho, the United Kingdom and the United States. She was educated in Swaziland, the U.S and England, and has divided her adult life between South Africa and the U.S.
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 she has taught at the Universities of Hartford and Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina.
This event is free and open to the public.