Joseph Murumbi

Joseph Anthony Zuzarte Murumbi was born on June 18, 1911, in Eldama Ravine, the son of a Goan trader and a Maasai mother. During the Mau Mau emergency, he operated as the overseas diplomatic representative of the Kenya African Union in London, garnering British left-wing support.

Appointed independent Kenya's first Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1963 and Vice-President in May 1966, Murumbi resigned within six months, disillusioned by political assassinations and corruption. A connoisseur of African aesthetics, he and his wife Sheila amassed over 50,000 rare books, historical manuscripts, and African sculptures, bequeathing the entire collection to the people of Kenya to establish the Murumbi African Heritage Collection.