Joseph Murumbi. A Legacy of Integrity

In 1966, after serving first as Kenya’s Foreign
Minister and then as Vice-President, Joseph Murumbi resigned from
Government. Having concluded that the country had made a wrong turn away
from a concern for the poor and the ideals he believed in, Morumbi told
an old friend that he could no longer ‘be part of corruption in this
country’. Tribalism, too, which was to take Kenya to the brink of
disaster years later, had already become firmly entrenched, and he
wanted no part of it.

Today, Murumbi stands as a symbol of what
Kenya could have become, and still could be. As the son of a Goan father
and a Maasai mother, he disdained prejudice of any kind. As someone
plucked from relative obscurity by Jomo Kenyatta thanks to his hard work
and talents as an organiser, he was dismissive of those who depended on
family or ethnic connections. And as a strong advocate of embracing and
preserving African culture, he was a champion of African artists and
their works.

This book, which combines interviews done with
Murumbi in the 1970s with historical information and recollections of
the people who knew him.