SYNOPSIS:

As one of the few emerging African elite working in Nairobi, Harry Thuku, young and mission-educated slowly discovers racism. Swallowed into nationalist politics, he begins to boldly question injustices like Africans being forced to carry the kipande, labour on settler farms and pay annual hut and poll tax. Among his acquaintances are Manjit Desai, a fiery Indian immigrant fighting for equal treatment of Asians in East Africa, and Max Yergan, a young African American working as a chaplain to British and African troops during the World War Nairobi barracks by day and literacy teacher by night. As the white settler and missionary communities conspire to exclude Indians and other external influence posed by the likes of Yergan, Harry Thuku’s fast growing support among Africans and association with Indians and Moslems has erstwhile Christian friends among the settlers divided on his activities. After he is arrested and detained at Central police station, his popularity is evident in the thousands of demonstrators who gather outside the police station. At the incitement of a woman, Muthoni, a crowd attempts to forcibly free him, leading to the police firing on them. When the shooting stops, 26 Africans including Muthoni lie dead in Kenya’s first organised political confrontation, earning the British Prime Minister a scathing letter from Africanist Marcus Garvey. “…The evolutionary scale that weighs nations and races, balances alike for all people. We feel sure that someday the balance will register a change.”

FINDING LEVELS