Kanyama Chiume

Chiume was born in Nkhata Bay District, Nyasaland, and described his given name, Kanyama, as meaning "another piece of meat for you," a wry joke by parents who had grown wearily accustomed to death in their family.

He attended schools in Dar es Salaam in the mid-1940s, at a time when this coastal city was a hotbed of African nationalist political activity.

In his last year at Tabora Upper School he became Secretary of the Debating Society, polishing rhetorical skills which would later be much admired when he entered politics in Nyasaland (now Malawi).

At Tabora Upper School, he reportedly invited an alumnus, Julius Nyerere, to join him in debating against white colonial teachers and administrators on political subjects.

Among his contemporaries at Makerere were people who would in later life become some of Africa's most accomplished scholars and public officials, including B. Ogot, Kenya's celebrated historian and Chancellor of Moi University in Eldoret, and the second Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki.

Upon being approached by the Nyasaland African Congress to stand in the country's first general election in 1956, Chiume accepted, and decided not to further pursue his interest in law.

In March 1959, Chiume avoided arrest while he was in London during "Operation Sunrise" when the local colonial government rounded up and interned members of the Nyasaland African Congress during the state of emergency.

Kanyama Chiume retired from active politics and eventually moved to New York to live with his family until his death on 21 November 2007, the day before his 78th birthday.