Beyers Naude, 89; White Clergyman Opposed Apartheid

Beyers Naude, 89, who turned against his Afrikaner upbringing after witnessing events such as the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and became one of South Africa’s leading white opponents of apartheid, died Tuesday at a retirement home in Johannesburg.

Nelson Mandela, elected the country’s first black president a decade ago, called Naude one of the most important pioneers of modern South Africa and a son of Africa.

Naude “was a brave man as he stood up against apartheid at a time when it was an unpopular thing for whites to do, and he did so at the expense of his family and his freedom,” Mandela said in a statement.

The son of one of the founders of the white supremacist group Broederbond, Naude joined the ministry and rose to prominence after he rejected the Dutch Reformed Church’s argument that apartheid was sanctioned by the Bible.

He rejected apartheid because of the authorities’ violent treatment of black opponents, especially the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which police killed scores of unarmed black protesters.

Naude was forced out of the church because of his activism, and the apartheid government banned him from making speeches that criticized its policies.