Hastings Banda

Hastings Kamuzu Banda (15 February 1898 or 14 May 1898 – 25 November 1997), was the leader of Malawi from 1961 to 1994.

Education

Banda attended school in the United States.  In 1928 he graduated from the school that is now Central State University in Ohio.  Next he attended Indiana University as a premedical student. After four semesters he transferred to the University of Chicago.  He graduated in 1931.  Banda then studied medicine at Meharry Medical College in Tennessee.

Banda was required to get a second medical degree in order to practice medicine in the British Empire. He attended the University of Edinburgh. Between 1941 and 1945, he worked as a doctor in North Shields.

Malawi
In 1946 he represented the Nyasaland African Congress at the fifth Pan African Congress in Manchester.  He began to take more interest in home country.

Banda was against the efforts of Sir Roy Welensky.  Welensky wanted to form a federation between Southern and Northern Rhodesia with Nyasaland (Malawi).

In 1951 he moved to the Gold Coast in West Africa. Banda finally returned to Nyasaland on 6 July 1958.  In August he was named as the leader of the Congress.  He spoke against colonialism and for independence. In 1963, he was formally made Nyasaland’s prime minister.   On 6 July 1964, Nyasaland became the independent Commonwealth of Malawi. When he swept to power as the first President of Malawi in 1966 he called himself "Ngwazi", which means conqueror, and after a few years declared himself "Life President".

Malawi became a one-party state under the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). In 1970, the MCP made him the party’s President for Life. In 1971, he became President for Life of Malawi itself.

References

Category:1898 births
Category:1997 deaths
Category:Presidents of Malawi
Category:Prime ministers of Malawi