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Kenneth Kaunda elected President of UNIP in Northern Rhodesia

Kenneth Kaunda was one of the foremost politicians and independence campaigners in Northern Rhodesia. Under his leadership, the United Independence Party would go on to govern newly indepedent Zambia in 1964.

Kenneth Kaunda (right) with supporters of the UNIP, March 1960
Source: The National Archives UK, OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On a visit to the United States in 1960, Kenneth Kaunda, addressing an audience in Topeka, Kansas, opined, “You [the USA] have gone too far with the colonial powers as though you had forgotten your own revolution. But do not link your help with your fight against Communism. You give Communism too much credit. Give because another human being is in need, and you will be more respected. But help us soon, because time is short, very short.”

Such comments reflected the process of decolonisation underway in Africa as well as the Cold War contest for global influence which was intensifying in the so-called ‘third world’.

Source: ‘Rising African Leader Takes Look at the U.S.’, Life, 30 May 1960, p. 91

 

 

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