Where did Jomo Kenyatta grow up and live?

📍Gatundu, Kiambu, Kenya

1897 – 1978

“I was born Kamau wa Ngengi around 1897 in Gatundu in the Kikuyu highlands of Kenya, and I became Jomo Kenyatta — Burning Spear — the father of Kenyan independence. I spent fifteen years in Britain, studied anthropology at the London School of Economics under Malinowski, and wrote Facing Mount Kenya — an anthropological study of Kikuyu society that was also an argument for African cultural integrity and political self-determination. I was imprisoned by the British from 1952 to 1961 on charges relating to the Mau Mau uprising. I emerged from prison to lead Kenya to independence in 1963 and governed until my death in 1978. Gatundu — the Kikuyu highlands, the tea and coffee country, the view of Mount Kenya on clear days — was always home.”

👍 LovedThe Kikuyu highlands and the view of Mount Kenya. The London School of Economics years that gave me the intellectual tools to argue for African self-determination. Kenyan independence on the 12th of December 1963.

👎 DislikedThe nine years of imprisonment. The Mau Mau period and its violence on both sides. The increasing authoritarianism of my later years in power.

Map showing where Jomo Kenyatta lived — Gatundu, Kiambu, Kenya

🗺️ Approximate location today

📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons

Sources: Murray-Brown, J. Kenyatta (1972), George Allen & Unwin; Kenyatta, J. Facing Mount Kenya (1938), Secker & Warburg