Background
Harry Nkumbula was born on January 1916, at Namwala in the Southern Province.
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Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula
Edit ProfileEducation
Educated at Namwala Methodist Mission and qualified as a teacher at Kafue Training College in 1934. He took a teaching job at Kitwe in the Copperbelt and began his political apprenticeship in the Kitwe African Society learning to make speeches.
A British government scholarship enabled him to go to Makerere College, Uganda, where he studied history and geography. In 1946 he won a scholarship to the London School of Economics. He joined the Africa Committee in London which had Jomo Kenyatta as chairman and Kwame Nkrumah as secretary. Nkumbula believed it was his political activities in London which led to the withdrawal of his scholarship in 1950 before he could complete his degree course.
Career
For the next 18 months he was a sea-shell salesman, travelling to the East African coast for shells and selling them in Bwila. From one of these trips in the summer of 1951 he was summoned back to Lusaka to stand for the presidency of the African National Congress. He defeated the current ANC president Mbikusita by 24 votes to 1. His first task was leading the campaign against the proposals for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In February 1952 he created the Supreme Action Council to direct the fight. On March 23, 1953, at Ndola he publicly burned the British government White Paper on federation.
Much of the militancy evaporated when the federation came into being. His struggle for a better constitution led to a prison sentence of two months with hard labour in January 1955 along with Kenneth Kaunda on “prohibited literature” charges. Three years later he was again burning a British government White Paper with the 1958 constitutional proposals. Demands for a more radical leadership resulted in Kaunda and Kapwepwe breaking away to form the Zambia African Congress on October 24, 1958. Thereafter he moved in Kaunda’s shadow at constitutional conferences in London in December 1960 and February 1961. His popularity slumped when he lost his appeal, in April 1961, against a conviction for dangerous driving and causing the death of a constable on a bicycle.
After the elections on December 12, 1962, Nkumbula joined a coalition with Kaunda and took office as Minister of African Education. Two years later he suffered a setback, winning only 10 seats out of 75 at the elections against UNIP’s 55. An attempt by the party’s steering committee on September 20, 1965, failed to oust him from the leadership. A series of reverses in opposition had a sobering effect upon his political confidence. He pulled himself together and worked hard to retrieve lost ground.
By June 1972 the ANC’s “Old Man” was back in full fighting spirit again. Though losing some strength in Western Province he had consolidated his position as the man the people look up to in the Southern Province. He built up the party organisation to command about 250,000 votes and nearly 20% of the seats in the 105-seat chamber. He vowed he would fight the one-party system announced by President Kaunda just as he fought federation even if it meant being “in prison or in the grave”. On June 27 1973 he sank his differences and announced he was joining UNIP, saying: “I cannot sit idle or bury my head in the sand”.
Personality
Pioneer of the independence struggle in Northern Rhodesia who endured imprisonment in colonial times only to end up in opposition politics after independence was achieved in 1964. The more radical appeal of Kenneth Kaunda with the breakaway party UNIP left Nkumbula in the wilderness.
Teacher, seller of sea-shells, a man of ups and downs. Two examples of his bold political foresight entitle him to a special place in Zambia’s history. His decision to work with unsatisfactory constitutional proposals from Britain and his subsequent agreement to join a coalition with Kaunda in 1962 set the country on the road to freedom.
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Born
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Nationality
Zambian -
Political Party
United National Independence Party
Education
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1934
Career
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1951
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December 12, 1962