MARKED MEN: MALCOLM X AND PINTO

On the anniversary of his assassination, we look back at the legacy of Pio Gama Pinto. He was one of Kenya’s leading socialist voices and, in the spirit of internationalism, developed a brotherly relationship with the revolutionary activist Malcom X. In this clip, Dick Gregory, a Black writer, activist and social critic, explains their close bond.

This was first formed during Malcolm X's 1959 visit to Kenya. Pio Gama Pinto, a Kenyan revolutionary of Asian origin, was deeply involved in Kenya’s struggle for independence. Both men were fighting similar fights against oppression. Together, they planned a joint strategy to combat injustices. Notably, Pinto advocated taking the US to the UN for its treatment of Black people. Tragically, within three days of each other, in February 1965, both were assassinated, highlighting the danger their voices posed to powerful interests. Pinto’s killing was Kenya’s first political assassination.

An accomplished journalist and propagandist, Pinto used his energy to publicise the cause of African freedom through political pamphlets and press articles. When, in 1952, the colonial government declared a state of emergency and detained most African leaders, he was involved in funnelling weapons to Mau Mau fighters.

Pio Gama Pinto had to die because he was perhaps the perfect African socialist in a Kenya whose independence was hijacked by capitalist elites. He was virtually at war with those accused of land-grabbing - including Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta and his ‘Kiambu mafia’ (a group of the elite from Kenya's Central province) - and with Western capitalism led by the US and British governments.

Pinto was shot on 24th February, 1965, as he drove out of his Westlands home in Nairobi. Though departed, his legacy lives on in the millions of Africans keeping up the fight for a fully liberated and dignified Africa. Rest with the ancestors, Pio Gama Pinto.