What does Uhuru mean? Freedom, Africa and the movement

What does the word mean?

In Swahili, uhuru means freedom or independence. The word came into Swahili from Arabic roots meaning free, and it is used in everyday speech as well as in politics. In Kenya and Tanzania it appears in place names, the names of streets and parks, and in the names of national holidays.

How did it become a political slogan?

During the struggle against British rule in Kenya in the 1950s, "Uhuru!" became the cry of the independence movement, and Kenya celebrated independence on December 12, 1963, as Uhuru Day. Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first prime minister and later president, used the word constantly. Across Africa in those years, more than thirty countries won independence from European powers, most of them between 1957 and 1966.

How did Black Americans take up the word?

Civil rights activists in the United States followed African independence closely, and some began to use Swahili words such as uhuru and harambee (pulling together) as signs of connection with Africa. For SNCC organizers, the link was personal after the 1964 delegation visited Guinea, described on our Guinea page. Later in the 1960s, the Black Power movement made African words and names more common in Black American culture, and the holiday Kwanzaa, created in 1966, used Swahili terms throughout.

Where does Fannie Lou Hamer fit?

Hamer spoke in the language of the Black church and the Bible, and her word for the goal was freedom. We have not found a documented instance of her using the word uhuru, and we do not put it in her mouth. Her place in the story is the 1964 trip to Guinea, which she described afterward to audiences in Mississippi and in the North, and her lifelong argument that freedom had to include land, food and the vote. For the songs she sang about freedom, see Freedom songs.