page_title: Jomo Kenyatta
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Jomo Kenyatta / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Jomo Kenyatta Statue in front of Kenya High Court, Nairobi, Kenya Русский: Памятник Джомо Кениате, Найроби, Кения
context_page_description: Jomo Kenyatta was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country's first indigenous head of government and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and conservative, he led the Kenya African National Union party from 1961 until his death.
  Kenyatta was born to Kikuyu farmers in Kiambu, British East Africa. Educated at a mission school, he worked in various jobs before becoming politically engaged through the Kikuyu Central Association. In 1929, he travelled to London to lobby for Kikuyu land affairs. During the 1930s, he studied at Moscow's Communist University of the Toilers of the East, University College London, and the London School of Economics. In 1938, he published an anthropological study of Kikuyu life before working as a farm labourer in Sussex during the Second World War.
context_section_description: Within Kenya, Kenyatta came to be regarded as the "Father of the Nation", and was given the unofficial title of Mzee, a Swahili term meaning "grand old man". From 1963 until his death, a cult of personality surrounded him in the country, one which deliberately interlinked Kenyan nationalism with Kenyatta's own personality. This use of Kenyatta as a popular symbol of the nation itself was furthered by the similarities between their names. He came to be regarded as a father figure not only by Kikuyu and Kenyans, but by Africans more widely.
  After 1963, Maloba noted, Kenyatta became "about the most admired post-independence African leader" on the world stage, one who Western countries hailed as a "beloved elder statesman." His opinions were "most valued" both by conservative African politicians and by Western leaders. On becoming Kenya's leader, his anti-communist positions gained favour in the West, and some pro-Western governments gave him awards; in 1965 he, for instance, received medals from both Pope Paul VI and the South Korean government.
  In 1974, Arnold referred to Kenyatta as "one of the outstanding African leaders now living", someone who had become "synonymous with Kenya". He added that Kenyatta had been "one of the shrewdest politicians" on the continent, regarded as "one of the great architects of African nationalist achievement since 1945". Kenneth O. Nyangena characterised him as "one of the greatest men of the twentieth century", having been "a beacon, a rallying point for suffering Kenyans to fight for their rights, justice and freedom" whose "brilliance gave strength and aspiration to people beyond the boundaries of Kenya". In 2018, Maloba described him as "one of the legendary pioneers of modern African nationalism". In their examination of his writings, Berman and Lonsdale described him as a "pioneer" for being one of the very first Kikuyu to write and publish; "his representational achievement was unique".
caption: A statue of Kenyatta was erected at the KICC in Nairobi.
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