Jomo Kenyatta (flaming spear), the central figure in winning independence from Great Britain for the African nation of Kenya, was born in 1894. His birthplace was the village Ichaweri in the highlands of East Africa, to the South of mountain Kenya. His father was Ngengi a member of the Kikuyu tribe. After birth he was called Kamau Wa Ngengi. (Kamau the son of Ngengi)
Young Kamau spent his childhood in the native village, tending cattle, sheep and goats and gaining the skills of a hunter, and learning magical secrets of medicine from his grandfather a witch doctor.
While he was being treated for a disease by the white doctors at a Missionery Hospital in Fort Hall near the city of Nairobi, he got friendly with them and learnt a lot about the outside world. Completely cured, he returned to his village and continued the traditional way of life.
At the age of 13, he ran away from home and returned to the Mission at Fort Hall. He wanted to stay there and work as a servant. The missionaries accepted him. There he learned to speak and write English. In no time he copied the dress, manners, and was very similar to any English school boy except the colour of the skin.
Then for a time he returned to his village and got married. When he was 20 he returned to the Mission dissatisfied with the life in the village. The missionaries welcomed him back and baptized him as Johnstone Kamau.
Before very long, Johnstone Kamau left Fort Hall and travelled to Nairobi. There he got a job as a clerk in the Public Works Department. He lived in a black section of the town and earned a good salary. Next he changed his name and became Johnston Kenyatta. His next workplace was the Nairobi Town Council.
After the World War I the British made Kenya a crown colony. They increased taxes, set aside larger and larger extents of land for British settlers, and virtually did nothing to improve the condition of the natives. The Kenyans decided to do something and an educated Kikuya tribesman named Harry Thuku founded the East African Association (EAA). The E.A.A. demanded the return of Kenyan farmland taken over by the British.
The British government arrested Thuku and threw him into jail. When an angry crowd gathered around the jail the British soldiers opened fire at them killing 56 people. Thuku who was unharmed was deported to a desert village. Johnston Kenyatta, who watched all this injustice with horror, joined the E.A.A. In no time the educated Kenyatta became the propaganda secretary in it.
When the British government ordered the E.A.A. disbanded in 1925, the group reorganized as the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). After three more years, Kenyatta quit his job and became the leader of the K.C.A.
Kenyatta spoke out for the right of Kenyans to their own culture and their ways of living. He founded a monthly journal ‘Muigwithania’ (the unifier). Its real message was clearly ‘Kenya for the Kenyans’.
In 1929 Kenyatta went to London with the hope of winning back for the Kikuyu their title to certain lands taken by British settlers. He failed to achieve his goal. Yet he did convince British authorities that the Kikuyu at least had the right to run their own schools for children of the tribe. He also convinced the British Parliament not to outlaw certain tribal religious ceremonies, as the missionaries were trying to do.
One group of British rose up strongly in defense of Kenyatta’s claims. It was the League Against Imperialism, made up mostly of Communists. This league sent Kenyatta to Moscow where he was received with honour as a leader representing a nation made up of African blacks. After two months in Moscow he visited Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, with communist party officials.
In 1931 Kenyatta once again travelled to England and stayed there for 15 years. There he testified before various Committees of Parliament, defending Kikuyu land rights. Then he studied English well and started writing letters to newspapers about the mistreatment of Africans by European Colonial Powers.
Next he spent two years at Moscow University, while also studying at a revolutionary institute in Moscow. There he actually became a member of the Communist Party.
On returning to London, he wrote magazine articles demanding ‘self rule’ for Africa and expulsion of the imperialist robbers from the African land. In London he shared an apartment with the famous black American singer and movie star Paul Robeson, a strong believer in communism.
Kenyatta wrote a text book on the Kikuyu language and with the money he received he enrolled in the London School of Economics and Political Science. There he became a student of the great anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski.
Working under Malinowski’s guidance, Kenyatta eventually wrote a book describing the tribal life of the Kikuyu natives titling it ‘Facing Mount Kenya’. In it he cried out against colonial misrule and praised traditional Kikuyu culture.
With the publication of the book he decided to modify his personal image emphasizing his African background. Instead of using the British sounding Johnstone, he insisted others to call him ‘Jomo’, which in the language of his tribe means ‘Flaming Spear’.
In 1935 when Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator invaded Ethiopia, Kenyatta joined with other African leaders protesting the invasion. Through the 1930s and during the World War, he met Kwame Nkruma of Ghana and other African leaders.
To support himself while living in England Jomo gave public lectures for the Workers Educational Association but most of his income came from his work as a hired farm labourer.
In September 1946 Jomo Kenyatta returned to Kenya. He became the head of a college whose purpose was to prepare teachers to educate native children. Before long, 300 such schools were established and the number of students in them exceeded 60,000. In the classrooms the students learned tribal languages, Swahili a national language and English.
Kenyatta soon became the best known defender of the rights of native Kenyans. He addressed huge meetings and rallies. He was always a dramatic and exciting speaker who held the audiences spellbound, and had a great influence over them.
For some Kenyans the organization KAU that Jomo Kenyatta headed was moving too slowly. Beginning in 1948 there were more and more incidents of violence murder and torture – against white people. The impatient terrorists began to call themselves the Mau Mau.
Kenyatta denied that he himself was a Mau Mau. He tried to separate the KAU from the Mau Mau’s bloody deeds. But in 1952 after a series of Mau Mau killings, the British arrested him. When the British police officers arrived at his home, he already was dressed and waiting for them, extending his arms for the handcuffs he smiled and said “What kept you so long? I’ve been expecting you.”
After Kenyatta’s arrest, some 50,000 other Kenyans were thrown into hastily made prisons. The independent Kenyan schools were shut down. The British authorities imposed an iron discipline throughout the country.
Although Kenyatta denied having any connections with the ruthless Mau Mau, he was tried and found guilty of ‘leading a terrorist organization’. The court sentenced him to seven years in prison.
When word of the sentence became public, The Mau Mau unleashed savage reprisals. Many of their opponents, black and white alike, were found killed in the streets. Often the bodies were badly mutilated. A large number of Kikuyus and other Africans who were angered by Jomo’s imprisonment joined the Mau Mau organization.
For Jomo Kenyatta, the years from 1952 to 1959 were the hardest of his entire life. Confined to a small prison cell, he had nothing to do but read and play draughts. His cell was filled with ticks and fleas. He was encouraged by the British guards to drink heavily and they provided him with strong liquor.
When the end of his prison term came, the British still wanted to keep him there further. The Kenyan people surrounded the prison and cried out for his release, demanding ‘Uhuru ha Kenyatta’ (Freedom for Kenyatta). At last the British set him free in 1961.
By then nearly seventy, he managed to stop drinking altogether. Again he began to co-operate with the young black leaders of Kenya for the nations’ freedom. ‘Harambee’ he cried out. The one and the only goal of all Kenyatta must be freedom for Kenya.
Finally in December 1963, the conflict ended. The exhausted British gave in. In a deeply moving ceremony the British lowered their flag and joined with Kenyatta in raising the flag of the newly formed independent Kenyan nation.
Kenyatta became the first prime minister of Kenya. One year later with the reorganization of the government, he became the president. He refused to take revenge from anybody black or white and asserted “We must all pull together in Unity.”
Kenyatta totally rejected the dictatorial models of communism. He refused to take over or nationalize industry and agriculture. He had ‘self-help groups’ to build roads schools and hospitals. Whites were allowed to continue the operation of their farms and businesses. He kept the white officials of the former British government and the army in their former positions. He supported democratic institutions as free press and public schools. The country prospered in all aspects within a very short period of time.
Kenyatta got a very good income from the large number of farms he owned. He went about in his own Rolls Royce automobile. He dressed in well-tailored British suits. But he wore on his head the native crown given to him by the minority Luo tribe, and a traditional Kenyatta belt around his waist.
At the age of eighty, he was called ‘Mzee’ (Grand Old Man) with affection by all. On the 22nd August 1978 Jomo Kenyatta died in his sleep.
At the time of his death the nation of Kenya, which he had done so much to create, was a model of prosperity and peace for all the former colonial nations of Africa.
