Nairobi City Council when an incident occurred that would become a favorite anecdote reflecting the racist attitudes of the time. Mboya was alone in the city health department testing milk samples when a European woman entered. As he turned to greet her, the woman stared directly through him and loudly asked, âIs there anybody here?â Highly offended, Mboya could not contain himself. âMadame,â he said, âIs there something wrong with your eyes?â 27
Mboya had long been an admirer of Kenyatta but had decided he would find greater opportunity as a young man in labor organizing rather than the more conventional political routes. 28 Although he would evolve into a liberal internationalist with decidedly capitalist leanings, as a young man he was a devout champion of the working man. Obama would wind up farther to the left than his mentor, ardently defending aspects of a socialist model in the early years of Kenyaâs independence. But in the 1950s they found common cause in their conviction that
Africans had a right to self-determination and that the era of imperial rule must come to an end.
Mboyaâs rise was as meteoric as would be his end. When Kenyatta was sent to prison in 1953 and dozens of other KAU leaders were arrested, Mboya was unexpectedly snapped up to fill the partyâs empty acting treasurerâs seat. Several months later he was made the general secretary of the prominent Kenya Federation of Registered Trade Unions (KFRTU), and his rapid advance was much talked about in the African sections of the city. In the years leading up to independence, Mboyaâs passionate and sophisticated articulation of Kenyaâs political ambitions would usher him to the highest ranks of the Kenyan government and make him an international celebrity on the emerging Pan-African scene.
But Mboya was also an eligible young bachelor who liked to pull on his immaculate white tuxedo and escort some of the cityâs beautiful young ladies to dance competitions around town. A resident of the Kaloleni estate, a neighborhood populated by middle-class and educated Africans, most of whom were Luos, Mboya invariably drew a crowd when he appeared at parties and dances there. It was at one of those that he apparently met Obama, then living in the nearby African estate of Shauri Moyo. They were both excellent dancers who could invariably be found twirling across the dance floor to the guitar bands that were popular. Each of them sported a highly polished Western appearance, although Obama took some years to master the tailored poise that Mboya so artfully cultivated. They also shared a certain haughtiness, off-putting to others but a characteristic that apparently echoed positively between the two of them. Mboyaâs biographer, David Goldsworthy, wrote that Mboya was so aware of his own abilities that at times âlesser men were treated with contempt.â 29 Goldsworthy could be describing the young Obama at his most withering.
Although Obama was not particularly interested in holding political office himself, he was absorbed in the political conversation of the day. And for that, Kaloleni was the place to be. He attended many of the evening debates there that featured the emerging nationalist heavyweights such as C. M. G. Argwings-Kodhek, then the only African lawyer and a prominent champion of human rights; Apolo Milton Obote, a vocal construction worker from Uganda who went on to become prime minister
and president of his country; and Mboya, who was becoming an increasingly powerful orator. Obama, as ever, took his contrarian viewpoints with him. âObama was not somebody to be brought easily into anything,â explained Were Dibo Ogutu, the longtime national secretary of the General Chemical Allied Workers Union in Nairobi. âAs a young man he would ask many questions even of those large men before he would accept their policies or ideas. But the one thing he really believed in was
Mboya had long been an admirer of Kenyatta but had decided he would find greater opportunity as a young man in labor organizing rather than the more conventional political routes. 28 Although he would evolve into a liberal internationalist with decidedly capitalist leanings, as a young man he was a devout champion of the working man. Obama would wind up farther to the left than his mentor, ardently defending aspects of a socialist model in the early years of Kenyaâs independence. But in the 1950s they found common cause in their conviction that
Africans had a right to self-determination and that the era of imperial rule must come to an end.
Mboyaâs rise was as meteoric as would be his end. When Kenyatta was sent to prison in 1953 and dozens of other KAU leaders were arrested, Mboya was unexpectedly snapped up to fill the partyâs empty acting treasurerâs seat. Several months later he was made the general secretary of the prominent Kenya Federation of Registered Trade Unions (KFRTU), and his rapid advance was much talked about in the African sections of the city. In the years leading up to independence, Mboyaâs passionate and sophisticated articulation of Kenyaâs political ambitions would usher him to the highest ranks of the Kenyan government and make him an international celebrity on the emerging Pan-African scene.
But Mboya was also an eligible young bachelor who liked to pull on his immaculate white tuxedo and escort some of the cityâs beautiful young ladies to dance competitions around town. A resident of the Kaloleni estate, a neighborhood populated by middle-class and educated Africans, most of whom were Luos, Mboya invariably drew a crowd when he appeared at parties and dances there. It was at one of those that he apparently met Obama, then living in the nearby African estate of Shauri Moyo. They were both excellent dancers who could invariably be found twirling across the dance floor to the guitar bands that were popular. Each of them sported a highly polished Western appearance, although Obama took some years to master the tailored poise that Mboya so artfully cultivated. They also shared a certain haughtiness, off-putting to others but a characteristic that apparently echoed positively between the two of them. Mboyaâs biographer, David Goldsworthy, wrote that Mboya was so aware of his own abilities that at times âlesser men were treated with contempt.â 29 Goldsworthy could be describing the young Obama at his most withering.
Although Obama was not particularly interested in holding political office himself, he was absorbed in the political conversation of the day. And for that, Kaloleni was the place to be. He attended many of the evening debates there that featured the emerging nationalist heavyweights such as C. M. G. Argwings-Kodhek, then the only African lawyer and a prominent champion of human rights; Apolo Milton Obote, a vocal construction worker from Uganda who went on to become prime minister
and president of his country; and Mboya, who was becoming an increasingly powerful orator. Obama, as ever, took his contrarian viewpoints with him. âObama was not somebody to be brought easily into anything,â explained Were Dibo Ogutu, the longtime national secretary of the General Chemical Allied Workers Union in Nairobi. âAs a young man he would ask many questions even of those large men before he would accept their policies or ideas. But the one thing he really believed in was
Similar Books
