October 2022 marks the 70th anniversary of the declaration of State of Emergency in Kenya by the colonial government. The declaration followed from the need to crush the rise of an armed Mau Mau movement, an anti-colonial struggle in the colony’s central and Rift valley regions. The declaration allowed the colonial government to respond heavy-handedly. It legitimatized the ban on Mau Mau and mass detention of suspects and sympathisers.

Dr. Misigo Amatsimbi and David Masika teach history at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Nairobi. They have published a number of articles and book chapters in social history of Kenya. 

The Department of History and Archaeology here in Nairobi was one of the most established centres of historical scholarship in Africa from the 1960s onwards. It had vibrant research programmes; gallant faculty which pioneered studies that immensely contributed to the mainstreaming of local agency in scholarship from the 1960s through to the 80s.