South Africans mourn loss of Desmond Tutu

Nobel laureate remembered for role in country's history

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CBS News) - South Africans paid tribute to anti-apartheid hero Desmond Tutu at his former cathedral and family home on Monday (December 27), a day after he died in a Cape Town nursing home aged 90.

Tutu, a Nobel laureate who had preached against the tyranny of the white minority, was revered by Black and white South Africans alike as the nation's moral conscience.

Mourners gathered with bouquets of flowers outside St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, the site from which Tutu led numerous campaigns and marches against apartheid.

The bells of St George's Cathedral, also known as the "People's Cathedral" and a powerful symbol of democracy in South Africa, tolled for 10 minutes at noon local time on Monday, a homage set to be repeated every day until Friday.

Outside his family home, Tutu's friend Trevor Manuel told journalists the parting was "unbelievably difficult" and said the family was "battling." He said for the Archbishop's wife, Nomalizo Leah Tutu, known as Mama Leah, "the separation is very painful."

Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in recognition of his non-violent opposition to white minority rule. A decade later, he witnessed the end of that regime and chaired a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to unearth the atrocities committed under it.