Wycliffe Wasya Work Awori (August 2, 1925 – May 5, 1978) was a pioneer Kenyan journalist, trade unionist, legislator, and freedom fighter. Popularly known as W.W.W. Awori, he was an eminent agitator for Kenya’s independence movement from the end of World War II and during the Kenya Emergency, which lasted from 1952 to 1959.
W.W.W. Awori was among the early members of the Kenya African Union (KAU) and served as Acting Secretary General, Treasurer, Acting Vice President, and Acting President at various periods before the organization was banned in June 1953. In 1946, at the age of 20, he represented the organization’s executive committee on a mission to the United Kingdom to persuade Jomo Kenyatta to return from England to lead the KAU and Kenya’s fight for Independence. In 1952, following the detention of the Kapenguria Six, W.W.W. Awori joined forces with other prominent politicians to secure a strong legal team, which included Denis Pritt, among other Kenyan and international lawyers.
He was one of the first African representatives nominated to the Legislative Council of Kenya (Legco), representing North Nyanza from 1952 to 1956. Prior to this appointment, he was a prolific editor and journalist involved in pre-Independence publications supporting Kenya’s trade union movement and fight for liberation. A proponent of the Pan-African movement, he drew inspiration from the struggle of other occupied countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Towards the end of his career, which spanned nearly 35 years, W.W.W. Awori served as the editor of the Kenya Hansard.
Early life and family background
W.W.W. Awori was born on August 2, 1925 at the Church Mission Society (CMS, formerly Church Missionary Society) Butere Mission in Kakamega County, which was then part of Kenya’s Western Province.
His father, Rev. Canon Jeremiah Awori (1890–1971), was the first ordained Luhya priest for the Anglican Christian ministry and served on the Local Native Council for North Kavirondo (later Western Province) for 41 years. He belonged to the Abafofoyo clan (Marachi sub-tribe). He was also a member of subsequent local councils and became Vice Chairman of the Elgon Nyanza Council and Chairman of the Busia County Council. W.W.W. Awori’s mother, Mariamu Olubo Odongo (1900–1964), trained women in health science, first aid, and child care through Mothers’ Unions. She belonged to the Abakhulo clan (Abasamia sub-tribe).
W.W.W. Awori was the fourth of Rev. Canon Jeremiah Awori and Mariamu Olubo Odongo’s 17 children. Their first-born son, Musa, died at the age of four. Rev. Canon Jeremiah Awori married Mary Akinyi in 1968 following the passing of Mariamu Olubo Odongo in September 1964, and they had a daughter, Naomi Maria Nambiro, in 1969.
Education After attending school in Butere and later Nambale, W.W.W. Awori joined Kakamega High School. Thereafter, he trained as a public health officer in Uganda at Mulago School of Public Health, currently known as the Makerere University School of Public Health under the Makerere University College of Health Sciences.
After working at the Municipal Council of Nairobi as a health inspector from 1943 to 1944, W.W.W. Awori left employment to pursue journalism and politics full-time.
Political career From his early twenties, W.W.W. Awori was famed for being “vocal in the politics of independence in Nairobi.” He was a committed member of KAU, a political organization founded in 1944 to support the appointment of the first African representative to the Legislative Council of Kenya, Eliud Mathu, and serve as a channel for the interests of Africans across the country. According to John Spencer’s book KAU: Kenya African Union, the colonial administration insisted that the organization change its name to Kenya African Study Union (KASU) to appear as a “study group” for Africans interested in public affairs. However, the organization’s leaders reverted to the original name at the KAU Second Delegates Conference in February 1946.
By the end of the Second World War in 1945, dissent against the oppressive colonial regime and racially discriminatory practices was growing in tandem with demands for higher wages and better working conditions for African workers. As the KAU’s Assistant Secretary General at the time, W.W.W. Awori “actively supported” the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester in October 1945 with KAU President James Gichuru and Secretary Francis Khamisi. The Congress was significant in Kenya’s independence movement due to the attendance of Jomo Kenyatta, who represented Kenya as its national and trade union delegate in the United Kingdom, where he had been living since 1931.
At KAU’s Second Delegates Conference in February 1946, W.W.W. Awori was elected Treasurer alongside Joseph D. Otiende, also from Western Kenya, who became the party’s Vice President.
In July 1946, KAU leaders selected 20-year-old W.W.W. Awori to represent the organization on a multi-pronged political mission to the United Kingdom. In addition to delivering a petition of grievances to British trade unionist and politician Arthur Creech Jones, he was tasked with convincing Jomo Kenyatta to return to Kenya and take up the presidency of the KAU. The trip was fraught with logistical and funding challenges, prolonging W.W.W. Awori’s stay for 10 months. During this time, he held meetings with British politicians and Members of Parliament to appeal for African education, land ownership, and labour reforms. He also advocated for additional African representation in the Legislative Council and the abolition of the discriminatory kipande identity certificate. Additionally, he met with the British Trade Union Congress, which expressed interest in Kenya’s trade union movement. Jomo Kenyatta sailed back to Kenya in September 1946, while W.W.W. Awori remained in England.
The 13-day Mombasa general strike in January 1947 had significantly emboldened the national independence movement that KAU had initiated. According to Kenyan trade unionist Makhan Singh’s historical reports, a resolution was passed at a massive meeting of workers in Majengo, Mombasa in March 1947 in support of KAU’s request to raise funds for W.W.W. Awori’s journey back from London, “knowing he was executing a noble and faithful obligation and serving his country in doing so.”
A few months after his return from England, W.W.W. Awori was elected KAU Vice President at the annual conference on June 1, 1947. Jomo Kenyatta took over from James Gichuru as President of the KAU. W.W.W. Awori was the only member of the prior committee to be re-elected.
He continued to raise the profile of Pan-Africanism and inter-community cooperation in the fight against colonial rule. In July 1947, he spoke against racial segregation in South Africa at a mass meeting organized by the Nairobi Indian Association. He also addressed workers at a historic meeting in Kaloleni Social Hall on August 16, 1947 in honour of the opening of the Nairobi branch of the African Workers Federation by Chege Kibachia, who was elected President of the federation at the Majengo meeting in March. Chege Kibachia was arrested on August 17, 1947, and a deportation order was issued for Makhan Singh on August 27, 1947, signalling the colonial government’s panic over the increasing frequency of organized worker action in other towns following the Mombasa general strike.
Factions emerged within the KAU leading up to the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1952, and the subsequent proscription of the organization in 1953. According to A History of Africa: African nationalism and the de-colonisation process, conservative KAU members, who included the educated elite, advocated for freedom through reform and constitutionalism, while the radical elements were more inclined towards militant tactics. As KAU President, Jomo Kenyatta insisted that members from different parts of the country should be represented in the organization’s executive committee. However, the divide between moderates and radicals continued to grow.
In June 1952, W.W.W. Awori was appointed as an African member of the Legislative Council representing North Nyanza. He joined Eliud Mathu, Fanuel Walter Odede, Benaiah Apollo Ohanga, John Kipsugut arap Chemallan, John Ole Tameno, and James Jeremiah.
A few months later, on October 20, 1952, Governor Evelyn Baring declared a State of Emergency and ordered the arrests of nationalist and trade union leaders, including KAU members Jomo Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, and Achieng’ Oneko (together known as the Kapenguria Six) following increasing suspicion of Mau Mau militancy. Just four months before these arrests during Operation Jock Scott, W.W.W. Awori had hosted Jomo Kenyatta, Achieng’ Oneko, Paul Ngei, and Bildad Kaggia in Kakamega.
An Emergency Committee of KAU appointed Fanuel Walter Odede as the Acting President, Joseph Murumbi as the Acting General Secretary, and W.W.W. Awori as the Acting Treasurer soon after the arrests. Together, they sought funds and a strong legal team to defend the detainees ahead of their trial in late 1952. They recruited British barrister Denis Pritt to lead the international defense counsel alongside lawyers A.R. Kapila, Fitz de Souza, and Jaswant Singh from Kenya, as well as Diwan Chaman Lall from India, H.O. Davies from Nigeria, Dudley Thompson from the West Indies, and Peter Evans from England. The colonial government deliberately held the trial at Kapenguria, a small town near the Kenya-Uganda border to mitigate public interest and potential uproar, and “did everything they could to inconvenience the defence team.” During the trial, W.W.W. Awori regularly used his personal car to drive the legal team from Nairobi to the remote outpost in Kapenguria, a distance of over 500 kilometres on rough terrain.
According to Makhan Singh’s 1952-1956: Crucial Years of Kenya Trade Unions, KAU were “consolidating the national upsurge that had recently been enhanced by the Mau Mau struggles, Kapenguria trial, and activities of the KFRTU [Kenya Federation of Registered Trade Unions]” under the direction of Fanuel Walter Odede, Joseph Murumbi, and W.W.W. Awori during the early months of the Emergency. However, the leadership of Fanuel Walter Odede (who represented South Nyanza as a Member of the Legislative Council) and W.W.W. Awori was being challenged by “tribal elements in Nyanza and other parts of the country” at the same time that the colonial government’s alarm intensified about the “growing unity and tempo of the national struggle.”
Fanuel Walter Odede was arrested on March 9, 1953 for his alleged contact with the Mau Mau and attempts to spread violent methods adopted by the movement in Nyanza, according to a report in the East African Standard. W.W.W. Awori was arrested soon after Odede’s detention but was released after his father, Rev. Canon Jeremiah Awori, intervened. He was elected as Acting President of KAU the day after Odede’s arrest. Tom Mboya, described as W.W.W. Awori’s “protégé” in his biography, took over his treasurer role, having served as Director of Publicity since joining KAU in 1952. As KAU’s Acting President, W.W.W. Awori continued to face the threat of arrest and constant harassment, including raids on the KAU offices by colonial security agents. Like many trade unions and nationalist organizations, KAU was proscribed on June 8, 1953 under Emergency regulations, making W.W.W. Awori the last President of the KAU.
W.W.W. Awori lost his seat in the Legislative Council to Masinde Muliro in the 1956–57 Kenyan general election, when the colonial government introduced elected positions for eight African constituencies. He vied for the North Nyanza seat again in 1963, but was unsuccessful. Although he stepped away from politics after Kenya attained independence, he served as editor of the Hansard until 1968.
Career in journalism