Muhammad Kenyatta Muhammad Kenyatta Muhammad I. Kenyatta, born Donald Brooks Jackson (March 3, 1944 – January 6, 1992), was an American professor, civil rights leader and international human rights advocate. Jackson changed his name in the early 1970s to Muhammad Kenyatta to honor Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam and Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya. In the 1960s, he worked for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the denial of voting rights to African-Americans in Mississippi. In 1969 he was elected national Vice-President of the Black Economic Development Conference and President of the Greater Philadelphia branch of
Jomo Kenyatta insisted that it was necessary; in a March 1961 speech, he described Kenyatta an "African leader to darkness and death" and stated that if he were released, violence would erupt. This indefinite detention was widely interpreted internationally as a reflection of the cruelties of British imperialism. Calls for his release came from the Chinese government, India's Nehru, and Tanganyika's Prime Minister Julius Nyerere. Ghana's President Nkrumah personally raised the issue with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and other UK officials, with the Ghanaian government offering Kenyatta asylum in the event of his release. Resolutions calling for his release were produced