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 Robeck became the District Officer, after which Kenyatta and the other inmates were treated more leniently. In April 1954, they had been joined by a captured Mau Mau commander, Waruhiu Itote; Kenyatta befriended him, and gave him English lessons. By 1957, the inmates had formed into two rival cliques, with Kenyatta and Itote on one side and the other KAU members—now calling themselves the "National Democratic Party"—on the other. In one incident, one of his rivals made an unsuccessful attempt to stab Kenyatta at breakfast. Kenyatta's health had deteriorated in prison; manacles had caused problems for his feet and he