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Activity 3 Writing biographies

(a) Read the following biography and answer the questions that follow.

FOR ONLINE READING ONLY
Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere was the son of the chief of the small ethnic
group, Zanaki. He was educated at Tabora Secondary School and then went
to Uganda to study for a Diploma in teaching at Makerere College. When he

returned, he taught at St Mary’s of Tabora (now Milambo Secondary School).
Then, he went to Edinburgh University to further his studies. He was one of the
first Tanganyikans to study at a British University. He graduated with an M.A.
in History and Economics in 1952 and returned to Tanganyika to teach at St
Francis (now Pugu Secondary School).

By the time Mwalimu Nyerere entered politics, Tanganyika had been converted
into a Trust Territory ruled by the British under the United Nations Trustee
Council, with independence as the ultimate goal. Since Mwalimu Nyerere

wanted to speed up the process of emancipation, he joined the Tanganyika
African Association (TAA) and soon became its president in 1953. In 1954,
he converted the organisation into the more politically oriented Tanganyika

African National Union (TANU). Under Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere’s leadership,
the organisation adopted peaceful change, social equality and racial harmony
and rejected tribalism and all forms of racial and ethnic discrimination.

In 1955 and 1956, he travelled to the United Nations in New York as a petitioner
to the Trusteeship Council and the Fourth Committee on trusts and non-self-
governing territories. After a debate that ended with him being granted a
hearing, he asked for a target date for the independence of Tanganyika. The
British administration rejected the demand, but the dialogue that followed

established Mwalimu Nyerere as the most prominent nationalist spokesperson
for his country.

The British administration nominated him as a member of the Tanganyika

Legislative Council, but he resigned in 1957 in protest against the slowness

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