Kenyatta family

Kenyatta family
Current region	Gatundu, Kiambu. Kenya
Place of origin	Kenya
Members	Jomo Kenyatta, Ngina Kenyatta, Uhuru Kenyatta

The Kenyatta family is the family of Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and prominent independence leader. Born into dominant Kikuyu culture, Kenyatta became its most famous interpreter of Kikuyu traditions through his book Facing Mount Kenya.

Born Kamau Wa Ngengi at Ng'enda village, Gatundu Division, Kiambu in 1889 to Muigai and Wambui, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta served as the first Prime Minister (1963–1964) and President (1964–1978) of Kenya. His date of birth, sometime in the early to mid 1890s, is unclear, and was unclear even to him, as his parents were almost certainly not literate, and no formal birth records of native Africans were kept in Kenya back then. In 1914, he was baptized a Christian and given the name John Peter which he changed to Johnstone. He again later changed his name to Jomo in 1938. He adopted the name of Jomo Kenyatta taking his first name from the Kikuyu word for "burning spear" and his last name from the masai word for the bead belt that he often wore.

His son Uhuru Kenyatta is the fourth president of Kenya

Jomo Kenyatta's family

First Wife

In 1919, Jomo Kenyatta met and married his first wife Grace Wahu, according to Kikuyu tradition. When it became apparent that Grace was pregnant, his church elders ordered him to get married before a European magistrate, and undertake the appropriate church rites. (The civil ceremony didn't take place until November 1922.) On 20 November 1920 Kamau's first son, Peter Muigai, was born. who later became an Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs; and daughter Margaret Kenyatta (born 1928). Margaret served as mayor of Nairobi (1970–76) and then as Kenya's Ambassador to the United Nations (1976-86). Grace Wahu died in April 2007.

Second Wife

He had one son, Peter Magana Kenyatta (born on August 11, 1943), from his short marriage with Edna Clarke. He lives in London after retiring from BBC after working as a producer.

Edna, who died in 1995 at the age of 86, was Kenyatta's second wife. Mzee was an agricultural labourer in England, earning £4 a week when the two met three years before he returned home to join the nationalist struggle. Their wedding – recorded in the certificate Dhiri offered the government – took place on May 11, 1942, at the Chanctonbury registry office at Storrington in Sussex. Kenyatta left Edna in England when he returned to Kenya in 1946 and married Grace Wanjiku.

Third Wife

His third wife, Grace Wanjiku, died when giving birth in 1950. Daughter Jane Wambui survived.

Kenyatta had married her in 1946 and she was the daughter of Senior Chief Koinange and sister to Mbiyu Koinange.

Fourth Wife

His fourth wife, the best known due to her role as First Lady, was Ngina Kenyatta (née Muhoho), also known as Mama Ngina. She often accompanied him in public, and some streets in Nairobi and Mombasa are named after her. She bore Kenyatta four children: Christine Wambui (born 1952), Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (born 1961; Kenya's president since 9 April 2013), Nyokabi Muthama née Kenyatta (also known as Jeni, born May 1963) and Muhoho Kenyatta (born 1964).

Mama Ngina lives quietly as a wealthy widow in Kenya. Uhuru Kenyatta, Mzee Kenyatta's political heir, unsuccessfully vied for the Kenyan presidency as President Moi's preferred successor in 2002 and is today the Kenyan President. He has served in different as a cabinet minister in different ministries and senior government positions including minister of local government and minister of finance, a position he held until confirmation of charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

Muhoho Kenyatta runs his mother's vast family business but lives out of the public limelight.

Kenyatta was the uncle of Ngethe Njoroge, Kenya's first representative to the United Nations and the great uncle of Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine. His niece, Beth Mugo, married to a retired ambassador, was an MP and also served as Minister for Public Health.