Malcolm & Pinto
Antonio Rudolfo Jose Pio Gama Pinto was born on 31 March 1927.
31 March 1927 - 24 February 1965
Malcolm & Pinto
MALCOLM X AND PIO GAMA PINTO
FEBRUARY 25, 1965 THE ASSASSINATION OF PIO GAMA PINTO
FEBRUARY 21, 1965: THE ASSASSINATION OF MALCOLM X
Two revolutionaries: Pio Gama Pinto and Malcolm X
When the American leader, Malcolm X, visited Kenya in 1959, he found he had a lot in common with Pio Gama Pinto. Both men were keenly aware of imperialism’s exploitative role and control of their societies, African and African American and the third world generally, and the capitalist system which operated for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the majority.
Understandably they planned a common strategy to deal with the daily humiliation and indignities suffered by both Africans and African Americans. Malcolm X needed to expose the USA’s blood – stained genocide of the native American, its slavery and predatory wars and to expunge the racism which continued to plague American society.
Pio Gama Pinto was deeply concerned with the land grabbing by ethnic based capitalists which erupted at Kenya’s Independence. Kenya was fast being transformed into a neo – colonial state instead of a truly people controlled sovereign nation. JM Kariuki famously was to say a decade later: “Kenya was becoming a nation of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars” he too was assassinated
Pinto and Malcolm X planned to take the plight of black Americans to the United Nations to demand that the US be charged with ‘human rights violations. Both men were well aware of the plots to silence them. Malcolm was assassinated in New York city on February 21, 1965, three days later Pinto was assassinated in Nairobi. their murders were surely linked: both were considered dangerous to vested interests.