Jomo Kenyatta

Yeah.

Did you ever meet Jomo Kenyatta?

Yes.

The first president.

A new constitution followed, and in 196- '63, Kenya was to become an independent member of the Commonwealth.

Its first president would be the charismatic figure of Jomo Kenyatta, who had been imprisoned during the Mau Mau troubles, mm-hmm, troubles we're calling them, uh, among, among the Kikuyu, um, and who was now to preside serenely over Kenya's white highlands.

Cyprus was also removed from the category of essentially military problems and dealt with on a mil- on a political basis.

Even the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Templer, suggested that after the Cyprus troubles, the only stable influences acting in our favor in the Near East were Turkey and Iraq.

I love what he's doing in his country.

He reminds me of my previous heroes of Thomas Sankara or Patrice Lumumba, uh, even to an extent in e-e-early days of Jomo Kenyatta.

So these are true, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and p- and President Ibrahim Traoré, he doesn't ne- is not necessarily, even though he's Muslim, it's not necessarily run a Muslim country, but he's, he's incorporating certain principles of that and he's talking about independence.

One of the things that he has insisted on doing is stopping debt immediately.

Even after independence, those tensions continued to shape ethnic politics for decades.

In the early nineteen sixties, as the British were readying for decolonization, a new leader emerged, Jomo Kenyatta.

He had spent years campaigning across Kenya, rallying support for the Kenyan African National Union and winning over a broad spectrum of Kikuyu voters by promising land reforms and national unity.

Kenyatta's journey to the presidency is itself a lesson in the complicated politics of independence.

This coexisted with harsh colonial administration that enforced racial segregation and denied African land rights.

Jomo Kenyatta, a prominent Kikuyu leader, was arrested by the British in October 1952.

He spent almost nine years in prison, which some historians say gave him national symbolic weight.

Kenya gained independence in 1963, and Kenyatta became the country’s first prime minister, then president.

In others, there was only sniggering, those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual niceties, proprieties.

But down below, ah, down below, where the people always needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and villains, he was considered a Bolivar, a Napoleon, a Robin Hood, a Dick Bong, Ace of Aces, a Jesus, a Jomo Kenyatta.

And at the top, where like socially attuned shipwrecked kellys, every tremor and vibration threatens to dislodge the wealthy, powerful, and titled from their flagpoles, he was considered a menace, a heretic, a rebel, a disgrace, a peril.

He was known down the line to the very heartmeat core, but the important reactions were high above and far below, at the very top, at the very bottom.

Well, my great uncle was

Jomo Kenyatta, who was Kenya's first president and the leader of the anti-colonial movement.

A

fascinating character in history.

That's music from the 1964 Blue Note album, Search for the New Land.

And the name of the cut is entitled Mr. Kenyatta.

That's a cut dedicated to the founder of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta.

And the personnel on that cut, Lee Morgan trumpet, Wayne Shorter tenor sax, Grant Green, St. Louis' own on guitar, Herbie Hancock piano, Reggie Workman bass, Billy Higgins on drums.

Now, Lee Morgan was a member of the finishing school of jazz, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.