Seretse Khama

Who is Seretse Khama?

Sir Seretse Goitsebeng Maphiri Khama was born on 1 July 1921 into the royal family of the Bangwato, the largest Tswana chiefdom in the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, and was the grandson of Kgosi Khama III. Educated in South Africa and then at Oxford University and the Inns of Court in London, he trained as a lawyer while heir to the Bangwato chieftainship. In 1948 he married Ruth Williams, a white Englishwoman, a marriage that provoked fierce objections from the apartheid government of neighbouring South Africa and from British officials anxious to preserve regional relations; the couple were driven into years of exile in Britain before being allowed to return home. Rather than assume the chieftainship, Seretse Khama turned to national politics, founding the Botswana Democratic Party in 1962 and becoming Prime Minister of Bechuanaland in 1965. When the protectorate gained independence as the Republic of Botswana on 30 September 1966, he became its first President, a post he held until his death on 13 July 1980. Under his leadership, Botswana used newly discovered diamond wealth to build one of the fastest-growing economies in the world while maintaining multiparty democracy, and he is widely regarded as the founding father of the modern Botswana state.

Sources: Sir Seretse Khama, Britannica (biography) · Seretse Khama (1921-1980), BlackPast.org · President Seretse Khama, South African History Online