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Kenya's 2nd Vice President & Art Collector
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(18 June 1911 – 22 June 1990) was Kenya’s second Vice President, serving from May to December 1966 after a two-year stint as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1964–1966). Born in Kenya to a Goan father and a Maasai mother, he rose through the Kenya African Union during the Emergency, acting as secretary-general and advocating for detainees before independence. Official records list Jomo Kenyatta as holding the foreign-affairs portfolio in 1963–64, with Murumbi taking the ministry thereafter; he resigned the vice-presidency later in 1966, publicly on health grounds, with later accounts linking the decision to disillusion over corruption and political repression, including the 1965 assassination of his ally Pio Gama Pinto. After politics he helped shape Kenya’s cultural memory: he became associated with the Kenya National Archives and, with Alan Donovan and his wife Sheila, co-founded African Heritage in 1972, a landmark Pan-African gallery. The Murumbis’ vast collection—books, stamps, and African art—seeded dedicated displays at the Kenya National Archives and the Nairobi Gallery’s “Murumbi” rooms; much of it was sold or bequeathed to the state for public access. Murumbi and Sheila are buried at the Joseph Murumbi Peace Memorial Garden at Nairobi’s City Park.
Kenya's Second Vice President (1966)
Kenya's first Minister of Foreign Affairs (1964-1966)
Co-founded the Murumbi African Heritage collection
His abrupt resignation after only a few months as Vice President remains a subject of historical debate, often attributed to his discomfort with growing corruption and political assassinations.
Bequeathed his collection to the National Archives of Kenya