Jomo Kenyatta

President of Kenya (1964-1978)

• Born: October 20, 1894
• Birthplace: Ichaweri, British East Africa
• Died: August 22, 1978
• Place of death: Mombasa, Kenya

Kenyatta wrote the first scholarly work on indigenous African culture from an African perspective. He became the first prime minister of the Republic of Kenya and the symbol of national unity.

Early Life

Jomo Kenyatta (JOH-moh kehn-YAH-tah) was born in Ichaweri, near Nairobi. He belonged to the Kikuyu tribe. The Kikuyu are Kenya’s largest tribe and form 20 percent of the population. Kenyatta’s father died when he was very young, and his grandfather, Kungu, reared Kenyatta and his brother Kongo. Kenyatta became independent and self-reliant at an early age. He was enrolled in the Thogoto Presbyterian mission school. He learned English, carpentry, and other skills that benefited him throughout his life and allowed him to serve as a bridge between African and Western culture. Kenyatta sought to blend the best of both worlds into a new world modern Africa.

After Kenyatta completed grammar school, he moved to Nairobi. In 1920, he married Grace Wahu, and the couple had a son, Peter Muigai Kenyatta, at their small home in Dagoretti. That same year, Kenyatta began helping Subchief Kioi wage a legal battle to save his land, and Kenyatta became painfully aware of the discrimination faced by his people. From this point on he took an active interest in public affairs, especially the restoration of Kikuyu land. The injustice of British settlers toward Kikuyu land ownership rights hurt Kenyatta deeply. To the Kikuyu, land is life; taking the Kikuyu’s land was equivalent to condemning them to starvation and death. As a result, he fought land cases with a personal passion.

By 1924, Kenyatta had joined the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA); he drafted their letters and correspondence. As early as 1928, Kenyatta became editor of the KCA newspaper Muigwithania (the reconciler, or the unifier). Kenyatta wrote numerous articles on Kikuyu culture and urged his people to seek education and adopt modern agricultural techniques so that they could prosper. He began the long fight to improve the material and spiritual welfare of his people by preaching a gospel of modernization without the loss of African identity. In 1929, the KCA sent Kenyatta to England to argue its case of the restoration of Kikuyu land before the Hilton Young Commission. He won some compensations for a few Kikuyu families, but huge areas remained set aside for whites only. The KCA was pleased, but Kenyatta was not. He stayed in England for nearly sixteen years to continue his original mission. The grievances of his people were Kenyatta’s main agenda during his stay in Europe. When the British ignored his constant petitions, he turned to the Soviet Union. He is said to have taken classes at the Lenin School in Moscow in 1932 and later to have attended Moscow University. Joseph Stalin, however, alienated Kenyatta and other African nationalists when he declared racial struggles a form of “petit bourgeois nationalism.”

In 1936, Kenyatta began studying anthropology under Bronisław Malinowski at the University of London. Malinowski was impressed by Kenyatta’s insight into African culture, and he would edit several of Kenyatta’s papers and arrange for their publication as a book entitled Facing Mount Kenya . This book won for Kenyatta a diploma in anthropology. In Africa the work was hailed as a patriotic statement of African nationalism. This was one of the first “inside” glimpses that the world had had of African culture. Celebrated as a literary figure, Kenyatta was emerging as a spokesperson for Africa and not merely for the Kikuyu. Kenyatta wrote other books and articles and helped W. E. B. Du Bois and Kwame Nkrumah organize the 1945 Fifth Pan-African Congress, which added to Kenyatta’s stature as a spokesperson for all blacks. He was called a champion of the African people, and his fiery oratory earned for him the Kikuyu name Jomo, or “burning spear.”

Life’s Work

In 1946, when Kenyatta returned to Kenya, James Gichuru, the leader of the Kenya African Union (KAU), stepped down so that Kenyatta could become the leading voice for all Kenyan African people. From his position as head of KAU, he began demanding freedom for Africans and independence for Kenya . Kenyatta asked Africans to rise above narrow tribal loyalties and unite to win their freedom. There would be no easy walk to freedom, especially for many young Africans who were born and reared in cities such as Nairobi. These people were dedicated to the future and to rapid change. They were “New Age” Africans and, like Kenyatta, men of two worlds. Many young African men were drafted by the British army. They fought bravely to defend freedom and democracy in Burma and elsewhere. Exposure to people and ideas outside Kenya made them acutely aware of how oppressed they were. When they returned to crowded city slums and were forced to accept menial jobs or unemployment, they became frustrated. These “marginal” men saw Kenyatta as their savior and took up his call for freedom.

Neither the settlers nor the colonial government easily gave in to African demands. Settlers defeated each request forwarded by Kenyatta. Africans began to grow impatient and started to form secret societies. African unemployment began reaching the 20 percent mark, while white officers were being granted big estates as rewards for loyal service to Great Britain. Tension began mounting, and everyone knew that a social explosion was inevitable. It came in the form of the Mau Mau Uprising in 1952. The origin of the Mau Mau rebellion remains a mystery, and no one has ever conclusively either confirmed or denied Kenyatta’s role as its instigator. What is clear is that the Mau Mau rebellion caused Great Britain to use brutal tactics similar to those used by the Nazis in a vain attempt to deny Africans freedom.

The settler philosophy of white supremacy caused great suffering for Africans. A United Nations Special Survey of 1953 revealed that the average annual income of Africans in Kenya was approximately one tenth of the Asians’ annual income and one twenty-fourth of white income. Kenya was run for the good of the rich, who were exclusively white, and Africans were angry. The Kikuyu began taking nonviolent biblical oaths of unity in 1947, shortly after Kenyatta returned from England and after the government refused to recognize Kikuyu grievances and sided with the settlers. With every refusal, Kikuyu oaths gradually became more violent and secretive. After Kenyatta was arrested, the killing oath appeared in Mau Mau ceremonies, and white settlers died in panga (short broad-blade sword) attacks. Between 1952 and 1959, Mau Mau insurgents took the lives of 32 white settlers and 167 security officials; however, 11,503 Mau Mau were killed in battles and 1,000 were hanged during this period known as the Mau Mau Emergency. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were arrested, and many were tortured and often died. Unwilling to admit that racial discrimination and the color bar caused these problems, the colonial government convicted Kenyatta of sedition in 1952. He was imprisoned and banished to the countryside for seven years. These events prompted many Africans to strike a blow for freedom, even when this meant death.

Kenyatta emerged from this conflict as the unchallenged leader of the African community and the only person capable of saving Kenya from disaster. Kenyatta’s name became a household word. KAU became KANU, or the Kenya African National Union, and its members elected Kenyatta as their president in absentia in 1960. In response to constant pressure from almost every quarter of Kenyan society, Kenyatta was released in August, 1961. The man whom white settlers had once called the “leader to darkness and death” was given a jubilant reception by thirty thousand cheering Africans from all tribes at a rally for him in Nairobi.

On December 21, 1963, Kenyatta, with a smile on his face, watched as the British flag was taken down and the black, green, and red flag of independent Kenya was raised on high. Born during the first years of British rule, he lived to see the end of British colonialism in Kenya. The slogan for the new Kenya became harambee “let us pull together.” Kenyatta vowed to work not only for the Kikuyu but also for all Africans and Kenyan citizens. In 1963, Kenyatta declared: “People of different races, colors, and religions can walk together to build a new Kenya, a new nation.” White farmers were not driven out of Kenya; rather, they were encouraged to stay, and East Indian citizens were allowed to keep coveted businesses. Although Kenyatta had personally suffered, he fought for reconciliation without rancor. He asked people of all races to “stay and cooperate.”

Through a program of Africanization, Africans were brought into the administration of the country in large numbers. A mix of scholarships and on-the-job training prepared them for their new responsibilities. Eventually this policy placed Africans in top business positions and helped them to gain control of many firms. Kenya and Great Britain jointly financed a “million acre” land purchase scheme in the fertile, formerly white highlands of Kenya. This permitted whites owning huge tracts of land to sell them to Africans on a “willing seller, willing buyer” basis. Most white farmers were aware that land was the major grievance of African Kenyans and that land hunger was acute, so they sold their farms. Many stayed in Kenya and went into manufacturing or tourism. Some of the Africans who bought this land secured large loans and bought vast estates. These individuals became commercial farmers, and their estates often stretched across thousands of acres. Others bought estates ranging from twenty-five to two hundred acres in size. They became small-scale employers and small commercial farmers, often growing cash crops such as coffee. Finally, Africans with few resources formed cooperatives with government help and bought farms that were later subdivided into small plots that provided for their subsistence. They produced a modest surplus to pay their children’s school fees as well as to buy clothing for their families. These schemes and others are the cornerstones of the stability that Kenyatta achieved for Kenya.

Kenya became a model of racial harmony, where personal freedoms were protected and the economy flourished. Kenyatta vowed to eradicate ignorance, disease, and poverty. He asked his Kenyans to beat their swords into plows. Loans, improved hybrid seeds, insecticides, herbicides, and modern technical advice were made available to small farmers as well as large. All Kenyans were encouraged to grow cash crops, and, as a result, agricultural output dramatically increased. Primary education, once a privilege for elite children only, became free for all Kenyan children. Kenyatta spent nearly one-third of Kenya’s budget on education, because he believed that this was the key to modernization. Since he also believed that good health is the foundation for all other activities, Kenyatta offered Kenyans free medical service.

In its first decade, Kenya’s economy grew at an amazing rate of 7 percent per year. Kenya’s coastal resorts, with their world-class hotels, fine restaurants, and international airports, attracted hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world. Foreign companies began establishing businesses in Kenya because they had faith in Kenyatta. Under his direction, Africans began to modernize without destroying their own culture. Kenyatta transformed Kenya into a model for Africa and the world to emulate.

Kenyatta died peacefully on August 22, 1978, and Kenyans, saddened by his death, mourned their loss. It is a tribute to Kenyatta that Daniel arap Moi, a Kalenjin, not a Kikuyu, was elected to succeed Kenyatta as president of Kenya. The election was orderly and the transition was democratic and peaceful. Kenyatta suffered greatly for his people, but he lived to lead a stable and prosperous nation into the modern era.

Significance

Under Kenyatta’s leadership, Kenya became a showcase for capitalistic development in Africa. This phenomenon has attracted capital from abroad, fueling impressive growth. Low levels of military spending allowed Kenyatta to make dramatic improvements in the health and education of millions of Kenyans. His policies have created peace and prosperity for modern Kenya. Kenyatta provided modern agricultural advisers, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, credit, and improved seeds to African farmers. They responded by boosting commercial production of cash crops, such as coffee, tea, and pyrethrum to record high levels. He simultaneously improved roads all over Kenya, making it easier for farmers to market their crops while still fresh. Cattle and sheep ranches have expanded and now supply many European, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries with high-quality beef. Preservation of vast wildlife reserves and game parks has assisted the expansion of tourism. Many modern luxury hotels can be found throughout Kenya, and tourism is the third largest source of foreign exchange.

Foreign investment was encouraged, resulting in the vigorous growth of industry. Kenya now assembles American, British, German, and Japanese cars as well as heavy vehicles. It manufactures textiles, electronic products, chemicals, paper, pharmaceuticals, and processed agricultural goods. Technical institutes are springing up in every province of Kenya to supply skilled technicians to manage existing and future industries. Kenya is poised for economic takeoff, thanks to Kenyatta’s policies. Kenyatta brought freedom, racial harmony, peace, political stability, and prosperity. His policies were so successful that his successor, Daniel arap Moi, named his own policies nyayo, or footsteps, suggesting that Kenyans wish to continue Kenyatta’s policies. No greater tribute could be offered to anyone.

Bibliography

Anderson, David. Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of the Empire. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. History of the Mau Mau Emergency that focuses on the British colonial justice system. Discusses how the British tried and imprisoned Kenyatta to make him a scapegoat for the crisis.

Delf, George. Jomo Kenyatta: Towards Truth About “The Light of Kenya.” Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961. The first major portrait of Kenyatta that was sympathetic prior to independence. One of the first authors to paint a picture of Kenyatta as a political healer, rather than a terrorist.

Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. New York: Henry Holt, 2005. Elkins describes how the British imperial government reacted to the Mau Mau Emergency. Also discusses the trial and imprisonment of Kenyatta during this period.

Kenyatta, Jomo. Harambee! The Prime Minister of Kenya’s Speeches, 1963-1964. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. A collection of Kenyatta’s political speeches and philosophy. He explains his self-help philosophy, or harambee, and encourages his countryfolk to donate time, effort, and money to improve their communities.

Murray-Brown, Jeremy. Kenyatta. 2d ed. London: Allen & Unwin, 1979. An in-depth portrait of Kenyatta. He is accurately portrayed as the leader of the independence struggle and the architect of postindependence modernization, economic growth, and prosperity. Brown shows how Kenyatta used a combination of control over ethnic group leaders and charisma to rule Kenya.

Slater, Montagu. The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta. London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1955. This book shows how white settlers blamed the Mau Mau Emergency on Kenyatta, even though they had no conclusive evidence proving that he led the movement.

Wepman, Dennis. Jomo Kenyatta. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. An excellent account of Kenyatta’s formative years, his education, and his foreign travel. Provides a good account of the struggle for independence but little information on postindependence Kenya.