On April 18, 1959, Kenyan politician and trade unionist leader Tom Mboya addressed a crowd of more than 20,000 in Washington DC, US on invitation by civil rights leader Martin Lurther King Jr.
The rally at the Washington Monument was to urge implementation of the US Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision establishing racial segregation in public schools as unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools were otherwise equal in quality.
The Youth March for Integrated Schools was organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. Other speakers included Martin Luther King, Jr, Roy Wilkins, and Harry Belafonte.
Here is the video of Mboya's speech during the march:
Mboya later attended an Africa Freedom dinner in Atlanta May 1959, where he was honoured by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Here, Dr King drew parallels between Kenya's struggle for independence and the American civil rights movement stating, “Our struggle is not an isolated struggle. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."
In a letter responding to Mboya's request for financial assistance for a Kenyan student, King wrote, "I should have written you before you wrote me to thank you for giving us the opportunity to honor ourselves in bringing you to Atlanta.
"Because of your distinguished career and dedicated work, the honor was ours and not yours. I will long remember the moments that we spent together," King noted.
Mboya worked with the then United States Senator John F. Kennedy (later president of the US) and Dr. King, Jr to create educational opportunities for African students.
This effort resulted in African Airlifts of the 1950s - 60s, which enabled African students to study at US colleges.
Notable beneficiaries of this airlift were Wangari Maathai, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Barrack Obama's father Barrack Hussein Obama Senior.
In 1960, Mboya was the first Kenyan to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine of the United States, in a painting by Bernard Safran.
