Word: mboya
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Unmoved by all this, Kenya's biggest African party, the K.A.N.U., led by James Gichuru and Tom Mboya, vowed to sabotage the new constitution until Kenyatta gets his freedom. Both Gichuru and Mboya now refer to Kenyatta as "our national leader," openly profess their intention of installing him as Kenya's first African prime minister. In part, this deference to Jomo is dictated by fear of the almost godlike status which 30 years of nationalist struggle has won Kenyatta among Kenya's black masses...
...everyone's surprise, there was no violence at all. Almost to a man, African speakers urged moderation on the black electorate. Mboya astonished white witnesses by eschewing his usual provocative slogans. "Let us not become arrogant or racial, but humble and conscientious in taking on our new legitimate and rightful status," cried Tom to the crowds, and quoted Rudyard Kipling...
When the votes were counted, Tom Mboya's Kenya African National Union had won control of 18 seats; 15 other black candidates were elected, giving the blacks a majority in the 65-man legislature. Mboya's own victory was a triumphant refutation of the charge that the Africans would split along tribal lines. Mboya is a member of the Luo tribe, and his opponents cannily ran a prominent Kikuyu doctor against him in his Nairobi district, where Kikuyus made up the bulk of the voters. It was no contest. Mboya won, 31,407 to 2,668. Young...
Though the British will retain ultimate control of Kenya's colony through the governorship, the Africans will get one-third of all Cabinet posts. But there is still Jomo Kenyatta. Mboya and his party swore to take part in no government until Kenyatta ("our first Chief Minister") is released "unconditionally'' from detention in Lodwar in the Northern Frontier Province wasteland 340 miles away...
...find a compromise. Kenyatta, the Governor decreed, would be moved to a house within 200 miles of Nairobi so that he could be consulted by the African politicians. But he insisted that Kenyatta must remain apart from his nation in detention "until the new government is working well." Whether Mboya. in his new moderation, is satisfied by this remains to be seen...