The Zanzibar Revolution

Just one month after gaining independence there was an uprising in Zanzibar in 1964. It was billed as a leftist revolution but the worst of the violence was ethnically targeted. Zanzibar’s complex history meant the islands were home to a very diverse population, and the legacy of the slave trade had left deep scars and lingering resentment. Ahmed Rajab was a student in 1964 and remembers the night the revolution broke out. He’s been telling Rebecca Kesby what it was like, and how it was a Ugandan man, John Okello, not a Zanzibari who lead the uprising.

(PHOTO: Ugandan revolutionary and self-styled Field Marshal John Okello (1937 - 1971), leader of the Afro-Shirazi anti-Arab coup in Zanzibar which led to the country's independence, circa 1964. Behind him is the new flag of the People's Republic of Zanzibar. (Photo by Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)