Bishop Tutu brings message of hope

Archbishop Desmond Tutu climbed into a white SUV on Saturday afternoon in the parking lot at Minneapolis' North High School after speaking to youth activists at a peace conference, and rolled down his car window.

People quickly gathered around the open window to take pictures as one of the world's most famous peacemakers rode through one of the state's most troubled neighborhoods, smiling.

"Each one of us has great potential," Tutu had told the crowd a few minutes earlier. "I have been quite awed ... quite struck by the incredible things that you do, that young people do."

Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate best known for his fight to overturn apartheid in South Africa, and his daughter Naomi are in the Twin Cities this weekend for a PeaceJam conference put on by the local nonprofit "youthrive."

His Saturday visit to the North Side was important to organizers not only because of his universal message of peace, but also because of the visit's location. The organizers are hoping that his presence in a neighborhood that had 27 homicides in 2007 will help jump-start a movement to take a stand against the community's problems.

"I want to see how much progress we can make," said 16-year-old Destinee Dozier, a student at Minneapolis' Edison High School. "We're trying as hard as we can to make some peace out here."

Some North Side residents point out that change is already underway. In 2007, the city's Fourth Precinct saw promising decreases in violent crime from 2006.

"This is your home, and you want it to be a community to be proud of," Naomi Tutu said to a rally Saturday in the parking lot of Cub Foods. "You want to be able to say, 'I am from north Minneapolis,' and say it with pride."

Montrell Donaldson, said that he'd seen Tutu speak three years ago. But this time, in his hometown, it was different. "It's very important that someone from a different part of the world cares about Minneapolis," he said. "That an archbishop, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, even took interest in us, it's important."

Emily Johns • 952-882-9056