Modibo Keïta

Modibo Keïta was born on 4 June 1915 in Bamako Coura, then in French Sudan, the son of Daba Keïta and Fatoumata Camara. His family claimed direct descent from Sundiata Keïta, founder of the medieval Mali Empire. He was educated in Bamako and then in neighbouring Senegal, where he graduated at the top of his class, and worked as a teacher.

Keïta became involved in the Communist Study Groups and the African Democratic Rally and was elected to the territorial assembly in 1948, re-elected in 1956 and 1957. He also sat in the French National Assembly. As leader of the Sudanese Union-African Democratic Rally, he became one of the most prominent figures of the independence era in French West Africa.

In 1959 he helped establish the Mali Federation, linking French Sudan and Senegal, and was elected president of its constituent assembly. The federation proclaimed independence peacefully on 20 June 1960 but soon collapsed, and on 22 September 1960 French Sudan became the independent Republic of Mali, with Keïta as its first president.

Keïta pursued an African socialist path, declaring his party the only legal party, nationalising much of the economy and taking Mali out of the French franc zone. He attended the Casablanca conference in 1961 and the Addis Ababa conference in 1963, supported African unity and nonalignment, and was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

Economic difficulties, including the 1967 devaluation of the Malian franc, and his suspension of the constitution eroded support. On 19 November 1968 he was overthrown in a bloodless military coup led by Lieutenant Moussa Traoré and imprisoned at Kidal. He died in custody on 16 May 1977; the government cited food poisoning, but the circumstances of his death have long been disputed.