Kenneth Kaunda

In 1962 my grandparents played host to a young man with a vision of a democratic Zambia. Kenneth Kaunda was 38 at the time, and president of the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Forty-eight years later my father would finally meet the man he’d peered at from behind his nurse at the age of four. The man who became the first president of an independent Zambia.

Kenneth Kaunda, known affectionately as KK, was born in 1924 in Lubwa, Northern Rhodesia, to Malawian parents. His father was a Church of Scotland missionary, and instilled in his eight children the values of the church, especially charity and love of your fellow man. KK was the youngest of the eight and trained as a teacher. In 1951 he quit teaching and became the Organising Secretary of the Northern Province Northern Rhodesian African National Congress (ANC). That’s a heck of a title, so in 1953 he became Secretary General of the ANC instead. In 1955 the ANC, led by its president Harry Nkumbula made an unsuccessful bid for the leadership of the country against the largely European led Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (FRN). Later that year Nkumbula and KK were imprisoned for two months for ‘distributing subversive literature’. This turned out to be a formative experience for KK. Upon their release his friend and colleague Nkumbula changed his stance and started to sympathise more with the FRN and their view of power with property. KK disagreed with the new stance of the ANC and so in October 1958 he formed the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC). Six months later the ZANC was banned and KK was sentenced to nine months in prison.

During his early political career KK had garnered a lot of support for his view that life would never improve for black Zambians unless they were proportionally represented in government. While he was in prison some of his supporters formed the United National Independence Party (UNIP) and upon his release in 1960 he was elected president. Using his position at the head of this new party KK set about building a successful campaign. He visited Martin Luther King Jr in Atlanta, Georgia, but in 1961 the UNIP staged protests which turned to violence, leading to road blocks and arson. The 1962 elections saw a UNIP-ANC coalition with KK in the post of Minister for Local Government and Social Welfare. In 1964 UNIP gained a rousing victory with KK at its head, making him the first President of an independent Zambia.

KK remained in power until the joint pressures of economic downturn and international pushes towards democracy meant that Zambia could either spiral into civil war, or a drastic change was needed. KK implemented a ruling which allowed for multi party elections, thus effectively ending any chance he had of re-election. A free and democratic election took place in 1991 and UNIP lost to the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). He was one of the first African statesmen to relinquish power in the name of a democratic vote.

Next month I will tell you about the time that we met this hero of a man. How he commands the attention of a room, how he is a gracious and wise host, and how he plays a mean guitar.

First published in Southwell Life, March 2015.