Harry Thuku

Harry Thuku (1895– 14 June 1970), was a Kenyan politician, who was one of the pioneers in the development of modern African nationalism in Kenya. Thuku was born in Kambui in Kiambu district of Central Kenya.

He spent four years at the school of the Kambui Gospel Mission, Harry Thuku became a typesetter for the Leader, a European settler newspaper. In 1918, He rose to the position of a clerk-telegraph operator in the government treasury office in Nairobi. He accumulated vast experience while he was working for the government. Thuku was one of the first of Kenya's Africans to be fully capable of working in the English language.

At the time, he was involved in the formation of the first African organisation to defend African interests in a Kenya that was dominated by European rule. He founded The Young Kikuyu Association, a non-militant group that pursued a peaceful and structured liberation struggle with the government and missions.

The organisation's main concern was for the preservation of African-owned land. He argued that land was an important factor of production and that the livelihood of the Kikuyu people, who are primarily farmers, risked being lost. His message reverberated strongly not only within his immediate Kikuyu tribe but also with other farming communities in Kenya and Africa. From 1920 to 1921 Thuku served as the secretary to the Kikuyu Association. However, he was more interested in action-oriented measures to address the rising economic challenges facing Kenyan Africans, realizing that the organisation was becoming heavily political and thus ill-equipped to achieve the association's original objectives of economic emancipation. In 1921, he stepped down from his position at the Kikuyu Association. Kenyan Africans were suffering economic difficulties, and the Europeans who were now in control of vast swathes of the local economy wanted to further cut Native African wages on the pretext of reviving the colony's economic position. Thuku's political and economic vision for the native African is widely credited as an important underlying common theme that was adopted and greatly characterised the greater African struggle for economic and political independence.

Harry Thuku went on to become a founder of the East African Association (1921), now a bigger and more representative African organization. It became Nairobi's first modern political organization. It drew its members from many tribal groups, however, because of its location most of the members were Kikuyu. Thuku continued to play an important role in Kenya's political and economic circles not only because of his level of education and position in government but also due to the practical down-to-earth politics that strived to restore native African dignity through economic empowerment.

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