Jomo Kenyatta was a politician from Kenya who was first Prime Minister and then President. He was the main person who fought against white supremacy in Kenyan politics and society. Eventually, he led many movements that helped Kenya become an independent republic instead of a loyal British colony. His party, the Kenya Africa National Union, fought for Kenya’s independence, and Jomo led it right up until he died, keeping his position as an honest leader. From going to the London School of Economics to working on a farm in Sussex during the war, Jomo saw many different sides of what it meant to be black in England, the country with the most white people. In the mid-1940s, he started going to and organizing meetings against racism and colonialism. He said that George Padmore was the most important person in shaping his political views. He went back to East Africa in 1946 and started running a school. In 1947, he was elected president of the Kenyan African Union. Many people think of him as the Father of the Nation, and he is often compared to Mahatma Gandhi.
Early years and childhood
Jomo Kenyatta was born in 1890 in Agenda, Kenya, to a family of farmers who raised sheep and goats near the river Thiririka. He was from the Kikuyu tribe, and his father had many wives, as was the custom. Many people took care of him and fed him in the small house. Because his parents died when he was young, Jomo was raised by his grandfather. When he was a teen, he wanted to study at the Church of Scotland mission, but he was shamed and insulted there. This was the bitter fruit of racism. When he asked why he was told that African natives weren’t clean enough to study with whites. But he wasn’t good at school, so he began helping a carpenter to learn the trade. In 1914, Jomo moved to Nairobi and worked for a short time for an engineering company. The job paid well, but Jomo got sick with an infection and couldn’t keep it. When he got better, he did some small jobs to make money. The British were trying to get Kikuyu men to join their army during the First World War, but Jomo refused to fight for the whites.
Political Activity in the Past
Around 1921, East African countries still had white supremacy, so a Kikuyu man named Harry Thuku started the East Africa Association to fight it. Jomo joined in 1922 when he was working in a municipal office. One of the main goals of the group was to take the whites’ land back, but the group broke up in 1925. Jomo and some other activists got together and started a new group called the Kikuyu Central Association. A few years later, Jomo was named the group’s general secretary. Jomo started a newspaper called Muigwithania to get more support from the people in his country. The government let the magazine publish mostly articles about how Africans could improve themselves. In 1929, Kenyatta went to London to speak out against England’s plan to join Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika into one country. This would have been bad for the Kikuyu people’s future. But the most powerful people in Britain wouldn’t meet with him. He was very angry and wrote a very angry letter to The Times in London, asking the British to take back the plan or else things would get “unpleasant.”In 1932, the British government gave in to pressure and put off plans to join the territories together. They also gave the Kikuyu people money to make up for the land they had to give up. Kenyatta was happy and proud after winning, so he went to the Soviet Union to study more and then traveled around Europe. He then went to the London School of Economics to study anthropology. He couldn’t join the KCA because he was too busy with school and other protests, but Jomo kept working for black rights and set up a meeting of the Pan African Congress in London in 1945. After Kenyatta got back to his country in 1946, he joined the Kenya African Union, which was looking for a leader. In 1947, he was elected president of KAU. In 1952, the Mau Mau rebellion happened, which shook the Kikuyu people to their very core. Kenyatta was the main person charged with terrorism by the Mau Mau, and he was sent to prison for seven years. Kenyan nationalists started the Kenya African National Union in 1960, and even though Jomo was still in jail, he was elected president. After more work, Kenya became independent on December 12, 1963, and Kenyatta was chosen as the country’s first prime minister. A few years later, the constitution was changed in a way that made him president. Jomo brought in the ideas of liberalization, and he kept his word and helped western companies invest in Kenya. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kenya’s economy grew many times what it was. But most of the wealth went to Kenya’s elites, and most of the country’s general population was unaffected by the change. The western media gave Jomo a lot of praise for his policies that were friendly to the west.
Personal History and Legacies
Close friends of Jomo have said that he was outgoing and full of life and that he enjoyed the pleasures of this world. As President of Kenya, he had a lot of nice cars and slept with a lot of women. He was also known to show his feelings clearly and get angry quickly.
During his life, Jomo married many women. His first wife was Grace Wahu, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He had a son with his second wife, Edna Clarke, and a daughter with his third wife, Grace Wanjiku. His last marriage was to Ngina Kenyatta, who was often called the First Lady of Kenya and was Jomo’s most beloved wife. He named streets and monuments after her, and she gave him a total of four children.
Jomo Kenyatta died on August 22, 1978, due to things that happened in the world. He was sick a lot during his life, but he was still able to live a long and healthy life. He said goodbye to the world when he was 86 years old. Charles, Prince of Wales, was one of the most important British people who went to his funeral.
