Features

The Racist Origins of the Word ‘Kyuk’ for Kikuyu

By Amol Awuor Long before the word ‘Kyuk’ or ‘Kiuk’ became a cool word to make reference to the Kikuyu community; it was a racist slur popularized by the colonial officers and settlers to demoralize and demonize members of the Kikuyu community.

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The Tanganyika Laughing Epidemic of 1962

What if laughter, instead of being the best medicine, became a disease?

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Crime in a time of Money and Power

Why do powerful people get away with crime?

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18 Rare Photos of Tom Mboya’s Wedding to Pamela Odede

In April 1962, Ebony Magazine published a lead feature on the January 1962 wedding of Tom Mboya and Pamela Odede.

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Here’s Why We Need to Rewrite Our History

A brisk reading of K. Ingham’s 1953 book ‘Europe and Africa’ shows little difference in how we tell the African story.

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12 Stunning High Quality Photos of Kenyan History

By Nathan Tama It is rare to bump onto high quality images of colonial and precolonial images such as these. 

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The First Computers in East Africa –and what became of them

One of them ended up at the bottom of the ocean, because of a snake, a gun, and bureaucracy. Another ended up in China, somehow.

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Nairobi was Never Meant to be a City

The first men and women who landed in Nairobi considered the brackish swamp land perfect. The area was picturesque, with hills in the horizon and rivers crisscrossing the plains. The land was not suitable for farming, and certainly not for settlement, but it was perfect for grazing.

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The Beatification of Sister Irene Stefani

In late 1911, a 20-year old woman joined the Consolata Missionaries in Turin, Italy. She took her final vows two years later and boarded a ship for Mombasa, Kenya, in 1914.

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