Zambia's 1st president, Kenneth Kaunda, dies at age 97
Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president and a champion of African nationalism who spearheaded the fights to end white minority rule across southern Africa, has died at the age of 97.
He had been admitted to the hospital on Monday and officials later said he was being treated for pneumonia. Zambia will hold 21 days of national mourning, Zambian President Edgar Lungu said.
Kaunda was a schoolteacher who became a fiery African nationalist, coming to prominence as a leader of the campaign to end colonial rule of his country, then known as Northern Rhodesia, and was elected the first president of Zambia in 1964.
Although he eventually ruled over a one-party state and became authoritarian, Kaunda agreed to return Zambia to multi-party politics and peacefully stepped down from power when he lost elections in 1991.
In Zambia’s heady first years of independence, Kaunda rapidly expanded the country’s education system, establishing primary schools in urban and rural areas and providing all students with books and meals.
His government established a university and medical school, expanding Zambia’s health system to serve the Black majority.
Genial and persuasive, Kaunda gained respect as a negotiator pressing the case for African nationalism with Western leaders.
During his 27-year rule, he gave critical support to armed African nationalist groups that won independence for neighboring countries including Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Kaunda also allowed the African National Congress (ANC), outlawed in South Africa during apartheid, to base its headquarters in Lusaka.
At: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/zambias-first-president-kenneth-kaunda-dies-at-age-97/2021/06/17/f20d80ce-cf85-11eb-a224-bd59bd22197c_story.html
Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda walks with President Jimmy Carter on the White House grounds during Kaunda's state visit in 1978.
The affable socialist expanded his country's education and health care, gave his country's once-excluded Black majority a political and economic stake, and aided liberation movements in then minority white-ruled neighboring states.
Though his 27-year rule was authoritarian, Kaunda allowed elections in 1991 and oversaw a largely peaceful transition to democracy.
