Kenneth Kaunda

Kenneth David Kaunda was born at the Lubwa Mission in Northern Rhodesia, present-day Zambia, the eighth child of a missionary family, and trained as a teacher before the racism he encountered from white settlers pushed him toward political activism. He joined the African National Congress in 1949, and after a strategic split within the movement, founded the Zambia African National Congress in 1958 to press more forcefully for independence.

Kaunda was briefly imprisoned for his political organising, and after his release in early 1960 he was elected president of the newly formed United National Independence Party (UNIP), which led a large-scale, largely nonviolent campaign, including the ”Cha-cha-cha” civil disobedience movement, that ultimately forced Britain to negotiate Northern Rhodesia's path to independence. Zambia became fully independent on October 24, 1964, with Kaunda as its first president.

As president for 27 years, Kaunda pursued a philosophy he called Zambian Humanism, helped avert tribal civil conflict in a country with over 70 ethnic groups, and played a significant behind-the-scenes role supporting liberation movements across southern Africa, including in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa, despite the economic costs Zambia bore for that support. In 1991, after introducing multi-party elections, Kaunda peacefully relinquished power upon losing at the polls, establishing a rare and important precedent for democratic transition in post-colonial Africa.