John Chilembwe

Who is John Chilembwe?

John Chilembwe was a Baptist minister, educator, and early Malawian nationalist remembered as one of the country's foremost national heroes. Born in the Chiradzulu district of the Nyasaland Protectorate, he worked for a time with the radical American missionary Joseph Booth before travelling to the United States, where he studied theology and was exposed to African-American thought on racial justice. Returning home around 1900, he founded the Providence Industrial Mission at Mbombwe, building churches and schools that offered independent, self-reliant education to Africans outside direct colonial or European missionary control. Angered by the exploitative thangata labor system and the conscription of Africans to fight and die for Britain in the First World War, he organized an armed uprising in January 1915 against colonial estates and administration. The rebellion was quickly suppressed and Chilembwe was shot while fleeing toward Mozambique. He is commemorated each year on January 15, John Chilembwe Day, and his image appears on Malawian banknotes.

Sources: Shepperson, George & Price, Thomas, "Independent African: John Chilembwe" (1958) · Malawi National Archives, John Chilembwe Day commemorations · Encyclopaedia Britannica, "John Chilembwe"