The Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya was instrumental in radicalizing many of us who came of age in the 1950s. The British colonial regime in Kenya facilitated this by creating the “color bar” that racially stratified Kenya along very similar lines as the South African “apartheid”.  Segregation was carried to the extent of segregating even toilets, with “African toilets” constructed with two huge blocks of cement and a pail in the middle in which you deposited your “stuff” as in “Shit”!

Housing: European, Asian and African estates

Education: European, Asian and African schools

Trains: European (first class), Asian (second class) and African “third class” coaches

Under these existential circumstances many Africans came to hate “Europeans” and “Indians”, just as they despised and looked down on Africans.

When the “State of Emergency” was declared in Kenya, thousands of Africans were sympathetic to “Mau Mau” insurgents and Dedan Kimathi was their hero.

Here is a story: We were playing soccer in our neighborhood in 1950s and suddenly we heard that Dedan Kimathi was “sighted” in a tea room in Majengo. We abandoned our game and ran to Majengo. When we got there we did not find Kimathi! There were so many of such pranks by some naughty young men!

Who was Dedan Kimathi?

From Wikipedia

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Dedan Kimathi Waciuri (born Kimathi wa Waciuri; 31 October 1920 – 18 February 1957) was the senior military and spiritual leader of the Kikuyu rebels involved in the Mau Mau Uprising. Widely regarded as a revolutionary leader, he led the armed military struggle against the British colonial regime in Kenya in the 1950s until his capture in 1956 and execution in 1957.^[1] Kimathi is credited with leading efforts to create formal military structures within the Mau Mau, and convening a war council in 1953. He, along with Baimungi M’marete, Musa Mwariama, General China and Muthoni Kirima, was one of the Field Marshals.