Meet the Man Behind This Iconic Photo of Dedan Kimathi

One of the most iconic images depicting Kenyan history is that of Kenya's foremost freedom fighter, Dedan Kimathi, lying with his arms on his chest

The photo was taken on the morning of October 21, 1956, at the Kahigaini Centre in Tetu, Nyeri County.

Tiras Kimathi Murage, now 87, took the photo with his small Kodak camera.

He had arrived at Kahigaini where he found a large crowd gathered at the Homeguard post to see the Mau Mau leader, Kimathi, who had been shot and wounded when he left a nearby forest to look for food.

In an interview with the Daily Nation, Murage explained that Kimathi was happy to see him and called him 'Ngarana' (namesake), and they had a short conversation.

He then asked Karundo Mugo, the guard standing over Kimathi, to prop him up so that he was in a sitting position.

He snapped away and got two photos before a white officer attacked him, kicking and hitting him with the butt of his gun.

Murage never saw his Kodak camera again, but one of the pictures he took was on the front page of one of the local dailies the next day.

[caption caption="Tiras Murage with the photo he took of Dedan Kimathi"][/caption]

Murage and Kimathi had been friends before the militant struggle for independence began, with the Mau Mau leader having been a part-time Mathematics teacher at Ihururu Primary School where Murage was a pupil.

Later, when Murage was working with the Forestry Department in Embu, he received a number of letters from Kimathi asking him to send stationery and postage stamps to aid the fight against the colonialists, signing off  'burn after reading'.

Murage stated that he always complied with Kimathi's requests.

The freedom fighter was executed on February 18, 1957, by the British at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison where he was hanged. He was buried in an unmarked grave which remains unknown.

After being ignored by the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi's regimes, Kimathi was recognized as a hero by the Mwai Kibaki-led administration which also officially registered the Mau Mau Movement on November 11, 2003, and built his family a house in 2009.

Kimathi once stated: "I don’t lead terrorists. I lead Africans who want their self-government and land.”

[caption caption="A monument honouring Dedan Kimathi in Nairobi"][/caption]

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