The family has invested in various sectors, including banking with shares in local banks, the oil industry, insurance, hotel and tourism, media, manufacturing, and airline. [465], Kenyatta's succession had been an issue of debate since independence,[466] and Kenyatta had not unreservedly nominated a successor. Kenya's 1st President Jomo Kenyatta Arrested On This Day In 1953. [312] British troops were assigned to assist the Kenyan Army in the region. [212], The trial took place in Kapenguria, a remote area near the Ugandan border that the authorities hoped would not attract crowds or attention. [268] In August he met with Renison at Kiambu,[269] and was interviewed by the BBC's Face to Face. [387] In the short-term, its emphasis was on increasing the overall number of doctors and registered nurses while decreasing the number of expatriates in those positions. As a member of the Kikuyu people, he traveled to London in 1929 to protest the British governments recommendation that its East African territories be more closely united at the expense of Kikuyu interests. [323] For instance, a May 1966 amendment gave the president the ability to order the detention of individuals without trial if he thought the security of the state was threatened. [134] Kenyatta began giving anti-colonial lectures across Britain for groups like the IASB, the Workers' Educational Association, Indian National Congress of Great Britain, and the League of Coloured Peoples. [456] After Kariuki's murder, Maloba noted, there was a "noticeable erosion" of support for Kenyatta and his government. [1], Born Kamau Wa Muigai at Ng'enda village, Gatundu Division, Kiambu to Muigai and Wambui, Jomo Kenyatta served as the first Prime Minister (19631964) and President (19641978) of Kenya. [569] Among these groups there were widespread calls for restitution and in 1991 and 1992 there were violent attacks against many of those who obtained land through Kenyatta's patronage in these areas. [93], In Britain, Kenyatta befriended an Afro-Caribbean Marxist, George Padmore, who was working for the Soviet-run Comintern. [277] He was also aware that the confidence of the white minority would be crucial to securing Western investment in Kenya's economy. He adopted the name of Jomo Kenyatta taking his first name from the Kikuyu word for "burning spear" and his last name from the masai word for the bead belt that he often wore.[2]. [302] He publicly stated that talk of a federation had always been a ruse to hasten the pace of Kenyan independence from Britain, but Nyerere denied that this was true. He promoted reconciliation between the country's indigenous ethnic groups and its European minority, although his relations with the Kenyan Indians were strained and Kenya's army clashed with Somali separatists in the North Eastern Province during the Shifta War. Early life [342] There was growing black resentment towards the Asian domination of the small business sector,[350] with Kenyatta's government putting pressure on Asian-owned businesses, intending to replace them with African-owned counterparts. Born into the dominant Kikuyu culture, Kenyatta became its most famous interpreter of Kikuyu traditions through his book Facing Mount Kenya. [292], The May 1963 general election pitted Kenyatta's KANU against KADU, the Akamba People's Party, and various independent candidates. Nick Name: Mzee Jomo Kenyatta Also Known As: Kamau wa Muigai Died At Age: 84 Family: Spouse/Ex-: Edna Clarkem. [255] KANU then declared that it would refuse to take part in any government unless Kenyatta was freed. [389] This put a severe strain on social services; Kenyatta's government promoted family planning projects to stem the birth-rate, but these had little success. [64] He then lodged with a prostitute; both this and Kenyatta's lavish spending brought concern from the Church Mission Society. [131], In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia), incensing Kenyatta and other Africans in London; he became the honorary secretary of the International African Friends of Abyssinia, a group established by Padmore and C. L. R. Peter became an Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Margaret served as Mayor of Nairobi (197076) and then as Kenya's Ambassador to the United Nations (197686). [92] That month, he enrolled in the Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham, where he remained until the spring of 1932, attaining a certificate in English writing. Jomo Kenyatta with his sons Uhuru and Muhoho (right). She bore him another child, but later died in childbirth. In his Foreword of My People of Kikuyu: And, The Life of Chief Wangombe (1966 [98] Many Africans and members of the African diaspora were attracted to the institution because it offered free education and the opportunity to study in an environment where they were treated with dignity, free from the institutionalised racism present in the U.S. and British Empire. [355] During the 1970s, this expanded to cover the trade in soap, cement, and textiles. [372], In part fuelled by high rural unemployment, Kenya witnessed growing rural-to-urban migration under Kenyatta's government. Kenya's first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta married four wives, Grace Wahu, Edna Clarke, Grace Wanjiku and Mama Ngina. [388] This improved medical care had resulted in declining mortality rates while birth rates remained high, resulting in a rapidly growing population; from 1962 to 1979, Kenya's population grew by just under 4% a year, the highest rate in the world at the time. [395], Although many white Kenyans accepted Kenyatta's rule, he remained opposed by white far-right activists; while in London at the July 1964 Commonwealth Conference, he was assaulted by Martin Webster, a British neo-Nazi. Jomo married Grace, Wahu Kenyatta in 1942, at age 48. She argues that the quality of love is more important than quantity and that children will not be negatively affected by the absence of an opposite-sex parent. [383] Between 1964 and 1966, the number of primary schools grew by 11.6%, and the number of secondary schools by 80%. [201] In April 1952, he began a speaking tour in which he denounced the Mau Mau to assembled crowds, insisting that independence must be achieved through peaceful means. [374] Kenyatta was concerned by this, and promoted the reversal of this rural-to-urban migration, but in this was unsuccessful. [114] The pro-independence sentiments that he was able to express in Britain would not have been permitted in Kenya itself. [402] Kenyatta also maintained a warm relationship with Israel, including when other East African nations endorsed Arab hostility to the state;[403] he for instance permitted Israeli jets to refuel in Kenya on their way back from the Entebbe raid. In March 1930 Kenyatta wrote an eloquent letter in The Times of London setting out five issues championed by the KCA: (1) security of land tenure and the return of lands allotted to European settlers, (2) increased educational facilities, (3) repeal of hut taxes on women, which forced some to earn money by prostitution, (4) African representation in the Legislative Council, and (5) noninterference with traditional customs. [356] Between late 1967 and early 1968, growing numbers of Kenyan Asians migrated to Britain;[357] in February 1968 large numbers migrated quickly before a legal change revoked their right to do so. Kenyatta Junior and Fiona Achola Ngobi are long time lovers. [512] A. R. Barlow, a member of the Church of Scotland Mission at Kikuyu, met with Kenyatta in Britain, later relating that he was impressed by how Kenyatta could "mix on equal terms with Europeans and to hold his end up in spite of his handicaps, educationally and socially. After serving briefly as an interpreter in the High Court, Kenyatta transferred to a post with the Nairobi Town Council. [137], Kenyatta assembled the essays on Kikuyu society written for Malinowski's class and published them as Facing Mount Kenya in 1938. They are remembered both for making the dream of African independence a reality and for their invention of postcolonial authoritarianism. We're 100% free for everything!' FamilyTree Now.com FamilyTree Now. [248] Resolutions calling for his release were produced at the All-African Peoples' Conferences held in Tunis in 1960 and Cairo in 1961. He later noted that this was despite the fact his case was one of the strongest he had ever presented during his career. [190] They too increasingly called for further Kenyan autonomy from the British government, but wanted continued white-minority rule and closer links to the white-minority governments of South Africa, Northern Rhodesia, and Southern Rhodesia; they viewed Britain's newly elected Labour government with great suspicion. In 1947, he was elected President of the Kenya African Union, through which he lobbied for independence from British colonial rule, attracting widespread indigenous support but animosity from white settlers. [545] He added that Kenyatta had been "one of the shrewdest politicians" on the continent,[517] regarded as "one of the great architects of African nationalist achievement since 1945". [344] When Chinese Communist official Zhou Enlai visited Dar es Salaam, his statement that "Africa is ripe for revolution" was clearly aimed largely at Kenya. [189] He insisted on intertribal representation on the KAU executive and ensured that party business was conducted in Swahili, the lingua franca of indigenous Kenyans. "[203] Despite Kenyatta's vocal opposition to the Mau Mau, KAU had moved towards a position of greater militancy. . "[101] Kenyatta also visited Siberia, probably as part of an official guided tour. [339] Kenyatta's economic policy was capitalist and entrepreneurial,[340] with no serious socialist policies being pursued;[341] its focus was on achieving economic growth as opposed to equitable redistribution. Kenyatta enacted capitalist economic policies, and for the first 20 years of its independence Kenya had one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent. [306], Murray-Brown noted that Kenyatta had the ability to "appear all things to all men",[186] also displaying a "consummate ability to keep his true purposes and abilities to himself", for instance concealing his connections with communists and the Soviet Union both from members of the British Labour Party and from Kikuyu figures at home. [164], Kenyatta and other senior IASB members began planning the fifth Pan-African Congress, held in Manchester in October 1945. [74] Back in England, he wrote three articles on the Kenyan situation for the Communist Party of Great Britain's newspapers, the Daily Worker and Sunday Worker. [80] On his return, his prestige among the Kikuyu was high because of his time spent in Europe. His niece, Beth Mugo, married to a retired ambassador, was an MP and also served as Minister for Public Health. [554] By 1964, this image had largely shifted, and many white settlers referred to him as "Good Old Mzee". (The civil ceremony didn't take place until November 1922.) President Uhuru Kenyatta. This was his initial contact with Europeans. After eighteen months in Europe, Kenyatta had run out of money. [471] He nevertheless criticised the corruption, land grabbing, and capitalistic ethos that had characterised Kenyatta's period and expressed populist tendencies by emphasizing a closer link to the poor. His annual memorial is marked this week, but was turned into a family only affair last year. [216] The prosecution failed to produce any strong evidence that Kenyatta or the other accused had any involvement in managing the Mau Mau. [133] This group developed into a wider pan-Africanist organisation, the International African Service Bureau (IASB), of which Kenyatta became one of the vice chairs. 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