← The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
Wangari Maathai Part 2
01:40:07
We continue the story of Nobel Prize winning environmentalist Dr Wangari Maathai, who defied convention, financial hurdles, and the violent opposition of her own government to make her Green Belt Movement into an enduring worldwide force for societal good. She and her colleagues planted almost 40 million trees and empowered tens of thousands of women across the world to discover their own power to improve their own communities… from the ground up.
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- [00:01]
Susan
Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental. Hello, welcome to the show. This is part two of our coverage of Wangari Maathai. As a short recap, Wangari was Kenyan born. She was an indigenous Kikuyu, and she had opportunities that were not available to all, especially firstborn daughters in large families, which is exactly what she was. Her heritage made her appreciate and respect nature, while her education, first in a Catholic girls school in Kenya, then college and grad school in the United States prepared her for a career in the sciences. We left Wangari at the age of 26. She's a research assistant at the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University College of Nairobi and she's living in a newly independent Kenya. One of the first things she did with her independence was to register to begin her PhD work at the University College of Nairobi. And one of the next things she did was the ultimate symbol of freedom, at least for young people, a car. So she bought the car and then she learned how to drive it. Her life was so different than it would have been if she had been born just a few years later like her younger sisters had.
- [01:22]
Holly
She felt an enormous responsibility for these sisters in particular. They had not been able to get the same education education that she had due to the timing of the Maomao rebellion that had sort of trapped them out on the land without access to schooling. And so, as if she didn't have enough to do now as a PhD candidate as well as her more than full time job, Wongari rented a shop with an apartment in the back for her sisters to live and work in and paid to send them both to secretarial college so that they could eventually support themselves. So she passed on the tradition of the older siblings sacrificing for the younger. She spent early mornings going to markets, you know, the wholesale markets that you go to for supplies and restocking the store before going to work. But it was not all work and no play, which is a definite piece of evidence that she was in her 20s because she still had energy to live an urban, happy early 20s lifestyle.
- [02:29]
Susan
She was living in university housing, but really she lived a very fun, carefree ish life of a mid 20 year old, not unlike life here in the US for young 20 year olds in modern times. She was going out with friends and she was constantly being reminded by her elder relatives that she needed to get married. So as her relatives were asking her to do, Wangari met a man. His name was Mwangi Maathai. He was five years older than Wangari. He was also Kikuyu, and he had also gone to college in the United States. He had a career in sales, originally with Colgate Palmolive in Kenya. Wangi was also a very entrepreneurial businessman. He had a number of businesses in various stages of success or failure, all under an umbrella corporation of his own called Mwengi Investments limited. But even with all those businesses, he had an eye on a career in politics. He was handsome, he was charming, and it really didn't take him very long to decide to get married.
- [03:30]
Holly
You know, those getting engaged right after you meet stories can sometimes work out. I am one of these people where you meet a guy and, you know, you just know.
- [03:42]
Susan
Yeah. And I don't think she would have chosen somebody that she didn't love. Like, she was so independent. She knew she didn't need a man, you know, to support herself and to live her life very fully. But I think there's a part of her that's very traditional and wanted the family, so she wasn't going to pick just anybody. And so that gave him a lot of points in my book.
- [04:05]
Holly
So her boss, the head of Wangari's department, wanted her to, as part of her PhD work, go and study at a university in Germany. Their university was about to get some very specialized equipment. Could she go become an expert? Bring the knowledge back, please. While you're there, you can knock off some of your PhD stuff. Now that. That is a. A wrinkle to the budding engagement is. Isn't it? But, I mean, Wangari said absolutely. And she asked her fiance to keep watch over her sisters and the business and went to, ultimately Munich. And it was a glorious interlude of novelty and friendship and study and research and travel. It was great.
- [04:48]
Susan
Back in Nairobi, her family, well, her two sisters, one did graduate secretarial college and did really well at it and went into a career as an administrative person. But the other one really took to being a shopkeeper. So she had kind of taken over running the shop. Mwengi, one of the first things he did was sell Wangari's car for some capital to invest in this business. And by the time, almost two years later, when Wangari came back, the business had expanded. He had bought the building, he had made himself a partner in the business, and he incorporated this business under his business umbrella of Mwang Investments limited.
- [05:29]
Holly
I think this is super shady. I love his sense of initiative, but if you read her autobiography, you get the kind of resigned feeling about it from her, right? Like the. Well, this is a fait accompli that I am going to have to reluctantly accept type of thing. I don't believe he asked to sell her car. No, I don't, is what I'm gathering.
- [05:53]
Susan
No, I definitely don't either, but I'm.
- [05:56]
Holly
Not blaming him for everything. As time stretched on, and we're talking almost two years, Mwangi became sort of agitated at her absence and kept sending her letters urging her to come back. And at first I was irritated by that. But, like, that is one thing I can see from his perspective. Are we going to get married? It's going to be hard to do if you stay in Europe.
- [06:20]
Susan
Right.
- [06:20]
Holly
Just telling you. So I don't love him for the whole selling the car.
- [06:26]
Susan
Right.
- [06:26]
Holly
Making himself a partner thing, but I actually don't blame him for sending the letters. And then any friend that was going by there, he'd be like, can you drop in and see if she has plans to come back?
- [06:35]
Susan
Yeah.
- [06:36]
Holly
And that I do get. It's fine. Because you'd be like, naturally, think about it. If you get engaged and then, yes. Somebody pieces out and moves to, like, San Francisco, you're like, I know. Naturally, like, are you staying there? Because. Just let me know. I agree.
- [06:46]
Susan
I was in Pittsburgh when we got engaged, and my husband lived in Chicago. And we were probably living like that for, well, all of our dating time at. Plus another four months maybe. But flip side, we did the same job in different territories, so we saw each other at conferences and meetings and stuff. So it wasn't like we never saw each other. Yeah. So I don't know.
- [07:06]
Holly
Well, when Gari returned home finally, when she was 29 and took up a position as assistant lecturer in her old department, she and Mwangi got married twice in both traditional and Catholic ceremonies. And almost immediately, Wangari's life, already complicated, became exponentially more complicated because Mwangi decided to run for parliament. Now, the wife of a candidate is absolutely essential to how her husband was perceived. And was her, according to him, over education, going to make him look bad?
- [07:46]
Susan
Remember when she had just gotten her high school degree even, and she had come back to her village and people treated her like, I don't know, like she was some alien, almost like, who? How are we supposed to deal with you? You're so educated. But she was able then to just be herself and put people at ease. She's kind of doing the same thing now because she is not a typical woman of this era in this place, having a career, especially one in STEM like she does. So people Just met her and they expected one thing. But what they got was a very pleasant woman who talked to people about things that interested them. She talked to them in whatever their original dialect was, whatever they were comfortable with, she did. And she was doing the very traditional wife role of making sure everybody was fed and comfortable when they came over to meet with her husband, that they had everything they needed, that she was running back and forth to the kitchen and let me get you a pillow, let me take your coat, you know, whatever, all that stuff. She was doing, all of that.
- [08:45]
Holly
Also, she took especial pains. It was almost like a PR campaign involving, you know, absolute adherence to the demeanor expected of a wife in a Kenyan household. She was moderate in her voice and demeanor. She was modest with regard to her clothing. She was deferential to her husband, whose enlightenment evidently only went so far because he took that as his do, in fact. And Wangari in her autobiography wrote, quote, I was expected to be a superwoman, which I wasn't. I hope my partner appreciated what I sacrificed for him. Because in addition to the PhD work and her full time job, she was now expecting their first child.
- [09:29]
Susan
And it's not just like being a hostess for his campaigning. She was giving speeches, she was going in front of groups and talking about why he'd be the perfect person in parliament. I mean, that alone would be a full time job. She's got like three and she's pregnant with her first child. And I could barely get off the sofa when I was pregnant with my first child.
- [09:49]
Holly
It was so bad I think I threw up for five months.
- [09:52]
Susan
Yeah, I was in the ER a couple times. Cause I was throwing up so hard that I was bursting blood vessels and my face, it was not good.
- [10:00]
Holly
So I know we do, we sacrifice a lot even during ordinary times, don't we? Well, Mwangi lost his election, but not by a lot. Not by a lot. It was narrow enough that he was not discouraged there would be another year. Their first son, Waweru, was born when Wangari was 30. And the next year, in 1971, Wongari Maathai became the first woman in Central and East Africa to receive a doctoral degree. And so from now on we will call her Dr. Maathai.
- [10:31]
Susan
Her dissertation, this fascinated me so much. Her study was on the development and differentiate of gonads and bovines. So cal parts. I don't know, I just thought that was very interesting, very niche, which I guess in stem. I don't have a stem degree. You have to do something like that. But it Reminded me of a book called Going Bovine. Did you ever read it by Leeba Bray? It's, oh, it is the weirdest book I have ever read. And it was, I think it's one of those, you either hate it or you love it. It's about a kid with mad cow disease, but it's funny.
- [11:04]
Holly
Yeah.
- [11:04]
Susan
What, going Bovine? Yes, Going Bovine.
- [11:08]
Holly
Okay, so talk about a niche book. Oh, it's just a little book about a kid that has mad cow disease. Like, that's also very random.
- [11:14]
Susan
I know. Well, it's a very wonderfully weird book, I think is the best way to put it.
- [11:19]
Holly
Well, there you go. We'll put that in the media recommendations at the end. I. Susan. Well, I'm not, I'm not signing on yet, but maybe I will check it out. Well, Dr. Maathi became a well respected professor, one of those professors that people get up early to go, hope to get in their class. That's good. And she became the mother of a second child, her daughter Wanjira. Dr. Maathai began to fight for equality at her university. There were benefits that were given to male professors that were withheld from women as they did not, quote, need perks like a pension or housing or paid vacation. Okay. Because technically their husbands would be providing for them.
- [12:03]
Susan
Yeah, well, there's only two women in this teaching level at this university, so it's brand new, not just for the women that are doing the job, but for the men who are established. And this is the way it's always been. Now, all of her students were also male, so she is definitely living in a man's world. And just to be told over and over again, come on, your husband's going to take care of that. We don't need to get you that. Well, she had to battle for it. She finally formed a union called the University Staff association so that she could take the administration to court to get equal benefits for women. However, the court ruled against her, but the administration sort of caved and they didn't quite give equal benefits, but they gave some, which I guess is a step forward. And over time there would be incremental increases in it so that eventually women would be compensated just as men were. But it took some time. However, when they decided they were going to pay Wangari and the other woman back money that was owed to them as if they had been in university housing. They gave him a check. Mwangi took the check and said, oh, we're going to do this something for our family. And he went and he Bought the family a new house, which is great, except he didn't put her name on the title.
- [13:24]
Holly
Well, that will come back. We will circle back to the bonus house. Dr. Maathai, during this whole process was so frustrated at both the battle that shouldn't have had to happen at all and she should not have had to be deemed a quote, honorary man in order to get those benefits given to her. Those two things rankled her. But the most important thing that made her angry was that the other women in the university, other than her American born colleague that also got these benefits, did not join with them openly. She wrote. I'm, I, I'm only quoting. Fighting battles with women can be very difficult and sad because both society and the women themselves often make it appear that most women are happy with the little they have and have no intention of fighting for their rights. I am often confronted by women who have waited until that security called man is no longer available to them to suddenly remember they should have protected their rights. What the struggle for equality at the university also taught me was that sometimes you have to hold on to what you believe because not everybody wishes you well or will give you what you deserve. Not even your fellow women.
- [14:35]
Susan
Just to point this out, this is about the same time that Gloria Steinem is saying all those same things over here in the United States. So it's not just in, you know, East Africa. It's also, it's global. It's a global problem. I, I thought it was so interesting. You just said a woman and are a half man. What did you say? How did you word that?
- [14:55]
Holly
Honorary man.
- [14:56]
Susan
An honorary man. And back when she was doing the hostessing, campaigning for her husband, she thought that people looked at her as a white woman in a black skin. That's a direct quote.
- [15:08]
Holly
It's a lot of alternative personalities to have to hold, right? Isn't it?
- [15:13]
Susan
Right. And she just wants to be herself. It's just, it's wild. Wangari also became involved in various civic organizations. One of the biggest of these was the National Council of Women of Kenya. That's a very far reaching as far as in Kenya organization. But she also did work with the Kenyan Red Cross and the Kenya association of Women and the Environmental Liaison center, which was a collection of non government organizations. We still have them, we call them NGOs. Non government organizations that worked with the United nations environmental programs. It was a global initiative and it was really with that group that she began to learn about environmental sciences.
- [15:58]
Holly
Educated Africans in general felt almost a familial responsibility to Use their skills in this way to sit on boards, work for causes that had a mission to lift other people up. It's almost like an expansion of older children reaching the hand down to pull up the younger children. So, you know, she did have a lot of. She did have a lot of committee things to do also. I just think, you know what, there's always that saying, do you want something done? Give it to someone who's busy.
- [16:28]
Susan
Yeah. And also.
- [16:29]
Holly
Which seems counterintuitive.
- [16:31]
Susan
Right. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. That one, I think, also plays in here. Yeah. Now, I do want to point out that she had help at home with her kids, but going against a trend at the time of formula, feeding your children, Wangari insisted on nursing her kids. So she's leaving work to go home, nurse her children, and leave them with the nanny. So that's a lot. I mean, now women pump at work, but that's still a lot.
- [16:59]
Holly
Well, so she's got a lot of balls in there. Well, Dr. Matai had been asked to do some field work determining why there were widespread problems with livestock parasites and disease in particular. In her travels, she was shocked to see the. Let's call them, depredations done to the countryside in the interest of financial gain for this new country. That carefully balanced ecosystem in which she had grown up had been replaced by the aftermath of deforestation and commercial farming of cash crops. Tea, maize, coffee, all of which take a lot out of the land. And more shocking, many ancient trees, such as the sacred fig tree, even the ones she had specifically been asked to leave alone, had been taken up. And with them, their ability to draw water to the surface. Gone were the springs and streams she remembered. Gone was a significant amount of wildlife. And without tree roots to hold them together, whole hillsides had collapsed. Even worse, she encountered malnutrition among the population, something she hadn't expected at all. And of course, a decade of civil war had done its own damage. You're not exactly going to tend crops when at any minute you're gonna have to flee for your life.
- [18:20]
Susan
Going back to that malnutrition, she realized that there was no firewood for the women of villages to go and get to cook their foods. So they were starting to rely a lot more on processed foods instead of, you know, the organic things that she grew up in. She grew up very healthy in. But kids in this era and this time were not able to access that kind of healthy food. So she kind of looked at it, and she's like, wow. Trees are life, aren't they? I mean, that's a Susan quote that paraphrasing everything she said. But who has the responsibility for those lives, she realized, were women. So trees and women are kind of co. Mingling in her head.
- [18:58]
Holly
During the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that was held in Stockholm, the group that Kenya was able to send, which unfortunately, due to cost concerns, did not include Dr. Mate. They spoke of poverty, of the lack of firewood, which meant a lack of safe water to drink, a lack of water at all, of shelter, of sustainable food. They expressed their feelings and the facts that Kenya was in an environmental crisis.
- [19:28]
Susan
This was a global conference, so it wasn't just limited to Kenya. This was a problem that communities and women in particular were seeing in other impoverished areas, not just in East Africa.
- [19:41]
Holly
When she was 34, Dr. Maathai's family expanded to include her third child, her son Muta, named after her father. Her husband campaigned again for a seat in Parliament and won. Hooray. Well, during his campaign, he had promised to find jobs to combat the rising unemployment in Kenya. And Dr. Matai writes in her autobiography that she asked her husband, what do you plan to do to create jobs now, now that you're in Parliament? And he sort of waved his hand and said, oh, people will just forget.
- [20:13]
Susan
About that and he can run on it again the next time.
- [20:16]
Holly
That was like, no, honey, that's your whole platform. You have to do it.
- [20:20]
Susan
No, no, no. That's just something politicians say, dear. Just shush, shush. Go back in your little sphere.
- [20:25]
Holly
And, you know, we're getting this from her autobiography, so I'm sure we're definitely hearing her side primarily. But he was evidently contemptuous of his constituency, and now that he had the power, he was going to do whatever he wanted and just not worry about the consequences for those lower on the economic ladder. It was your stereotypical selfish politician. And Wongari couldn't stand it. She felt, well, it must fall to me then. I participated in this lie, and now I've got to make it true. And so you gather your internal resources and you look around and you see what you yourself have experience in, like, what can you mobilize to help with whatever problem it is. She decided she would use the concept of environmental restoration to provide those promised jobs.
- [21:10]
Susan
So again, she's thinking, okay, trees and the environment and jobs and women. Let's do this. So she began a company named Envirocare. And basically the concept of this was as a landscaping service that would employ people needing jobs to Care for the gardens of the wealthy people that needed work on their properties. And also. So we're reforesting by planting new trees, we're giving people jobs. But there were a lot of issues with getting this off the ground. Primarily that the wealthy people didn't want, I'm sorry to say, poor people just wandering about their property. And they also were not really good at paying up front. So being essentially landscapers wasn't working. But let's just focus on the tree. Maybe we can sell some seedlings to put some money into Envirocare and kind of turn that business around, get it on solid footing. So she started a seedling nursery and took a whole bunch of her saplings to a conference focused on agriculture and made a giant map of Kenya with all these seedlings. And her idea was, well, I'm going to sell these seedlings. People coming in the conference can buy them and they can plant them, but people didn't want to lug around sapling. So she said, well, just come to my house and pick it up. But people never follow through. You know how that works when you're at a conference. You get all excited about something and then you go to the next booth, and you immediately forgot about what happened at that booth. So what she ended up with was a yard full of dead saplings.
- [22:42]
Holly
Well, her husband was displeased about that. And I will say I wouldn't want. I wouldn't want my fancy yard to look like that either. But he was generally unsupportive anyway. Now, there was a man that was more supportive than her husband. He was the man that ran the government tree nursery in a government forest. He, at the beginning, was giving her seedlings for free. But as they needed ultimately tens of thousands and ultimately millions of seedlings, though no one knew that yet. He was like, I'm gonna have to start charging you money for these. This is too many. I thought this was like a little tiny ladies in the neighborhood thing, but you've exceeded my resources, which is fair.
- [23:21]
Susan
I think that's fair, right? Yeah.
- [23:22]
Holly
Well, they ran into multiple problems, just mostly the funding and distribution. It just ultimately failed. But you know what? Sometimes you fail, and then you discover what might work for the next time.
- [23:34]
Susan
Dr. Matthi said, quote, failing is not a crime. What's important is that if you fail, you have the energy and the will to pull yourself up and keep going. So she did.
- [23:58]
Holly
This episode of the History Chicks is brought to you by Wild Grain, the first bake from Frozen subscription box for artisanal Breads, pastries and pastas.
- [24:08]
Susan
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- [24:28]
Holly
The gluten free box is the one that I got and it takes the hassle out of baking because all the items bake from frozen in 25 minutes or less. I love it. I got the seedy whole grain bread and I made it. And then I got an inspiration and I cut it up and mixed some spices in it and made croutons out of it. And my son stood there by the stove and ate and had half a pan of croutons straight from the pans and then wondered, like, I Wonder, he thought 30 minutes later, why I am so full. And they threw in a little extra. They threw in some of that super good French style butter with the little crunchy salt crystals in it that everyone tries to bring back from Legrand Epicerie in Paris.
- [25:16]
Susan
I'll tell you what I did with mine. I kept it wrapped up and I hide it in my refrigerator because nobody's looking. They're not looking in the butter dish for it because it's not in the butter dish. So it's my personal stash of really good butter. That's how much I personally am hoarding it.
- [25:33]
Holly
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- [25:56]
Susan
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- [26:27]
Holly
So Dr. Maathi, like a phoenix from the ashes, managed to turn environ care into a positive thing. She, in her conversations about her failure and her experiences, made enough connections with very powerful organizations that she was invited and sent to the very first UN Conference on human settlements. It's known as Habitat One. And it was held In Vancouver, the year she turned 36.
- [26:54]
Susan
This conference brought in some real heavy hitters for speakers. They had Margaret Mead, who is an anthropologist, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who is Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and economist and writer Barbara Ward. All of them spoke at this conference. This is one of those moments where you can learn a lot from a lot of really smart, experienced people. And that's what Hungari was about to.
- [27:17]
Holly
Do during that conference. They talked about the perils of urbanization, which was happening all over the world. And this reminds me, of course, of a lot of what happened in Europe and America during the Industrial Revolution. The rural population was migrating to cities and towns, and there hadn't been enough thoughts, any thought given to dealing with large amounts of people in small spaces and dealing with a whole brand new world. And I quote, inequalities in living conditions, social segregation, racial discrimination, acute unemployment, illiteracy, disease, poverty, the breakdown of social relationships and traditional cultural values, and the increasing degradation of life supporting resources of air, water and land, unquote. So you see, it's not just Kenya, and it is, in fact, not just Africa. But Dr. Maathai focused locally on what she felt like her strengths were. When she came back, Dr. Maathai spoke to the National Council of Women in Kenya. So we refer to them a lot. It's the N C W K about the issues raised in the habitat conference. And she proposed further tree planting. Because trees are not just plants, are they, in this scenario? Trees are shelter, trees are firewood and therefore safe drinking water. Trees are shade and conservation of water and arable soil. Trees are community coming together. Trees are empowerment of women. And trees are a way for the poorest members of society to have a stake in the future of the country.
- [28:50]
Susan
On June 5, 1977, it was World Environment Day, and Dr. Maathai organized a tree planting event. Her group had a ceremony of planting seven trees to honor seven leaders from different Kenyan ethnic groups. They planted the trees all together in a line in a park. They were all different varieties, and they looked at it as a green belt, that line of trees, a green belt.
- [29:19]
Holly
And this was the first event of what would come to be called the Green Belt movement.
- [29:25]
Susan
She decided to spread the word about this through Kenya with more ceremonies like that first one, and even her second one was really, I mean, it meant a lot. Just a couple months after her first ceremony, she had another one. This where they planted another green belt on a farm that was owned by 800 women in Nairobi. I love the symbolism of that. What a great marketing tool. But Also not a marketing. You know what I mean? Like, it's real. It's a real thing. That's the best kind of word, is when you do things that are so cool like that.
- [30:03]
Holly
Dr. Maathai encouraged the women of Kenya to plant tree nurseries throughout the country, searching nearby forests for seeds to grow trees native to whatever area they were in. But I don't know anything about forestry, the ladies would say. And she was like, we are not going to overthink this. I mean, I'm paraphrasing here. Look, it's not complicated. You have a seed, you have soil, you have water. You keep it high enough that the chickens don't eat it and the dogs and curious children won't dig it up. The end. You can do it. We can all do it. I have faith in you. We can work together. It was an army of amateur foresters that she was creating. She agreed to pay the women a small price for each viable seedling which could be planted elsewhere. And as a nod to her culture and some realism, there were also payments to male members of families for their accounting work, keeping records of money received and location of seedlings planted, which I myself think was a little bit Scarlett O'Hara. But sometimes you do what you have to do. There wasn't always the support within families for the work the women had taken on. Speaking of that, Dr. Maathai and her husband, Mwangi Maathai separated in 1977 when she was 37. They were becoming further and further apart. Philosophically, I've read some things about her husband and his associates that I do not feel I can substantiate enough to tell you. I'm gonna summarize this in the most mild way in saying that as she became crunchier, he became more ruthlessly corporate. That's as far as I'm willing to go. They were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. And that has an echo in some of the marriages of today, of political opposites. It just wasn't going to work out. And Mwangi filed for divorce in 1979. And he wrote that Wangari was, and I quote, too strong minded for a woman and he was unable to control her. He also publicly called her names like she mistreated him and accused her of adultery with another member of Parliament named Mr. Khanja, who was a close family friend. And the judge ruled in Mwangi's favor, even though the evidence was not there. It was an extremely public and scandalous case. Dr. Maathi's name was absolutely dragged through the Mud all over the media. Her reputation was in tatters. If you didn't know her, you know what I mean? Like, if you just knew of her as a name in the paper, you would have really thought very poorly of a person named Dr. Maathi. Her morals and ethics were openly challenged.
- [32:41]
Susan
She was even arrested because after the verdict, she was in an interview and she said something which was, it seems benign, but she said for the judge to come to that conclusion meant that he was either incompetent or corrupt. And some powers that be got upset at this, and she got arrested.
- [33:01]
Holly
The Attorney General of Kenya took her and the publisher of that magazine to court about libel for the judge, and she was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail. After she spent three days in prison, she and her lawyer managed to come together and sort of craft a. I don't know how sincere it was, but like the apology and abasement that would get her released from jail, you know, like, I didn't know. I'm just a woman. I don't know what it said, which is not public. One of those things, you just gotta do what you gotta do. So she spent three days in jail, but her legal team got her released. Shortly after the divorce, though, her former husband sent a letter demanding that she drop his last name. He wasn't having it. He wouldn't be associated with her anymore. And so she just added an extra A instead of changing her name. And technically, I suppose her name should probably be pronounced Matai now with the two A's, but I have yet to hear anyone refer to her like that. So we're going to continue with Dr. Maathai. And I can tell you, people either say Maathai or Maathai, and Maathai seems to be the Kiswahili way. And that's the way that I began thinking of her. But Maathai and Maathai are both correct.
- [34:23]
Susan
And if everything isn't going bad enough for her, that house that they were all living in wasn't in her name. So she had to move out with the children. Fortunately, she had fought for those benefits and had a university housing opportunity. So that's where she was able to move with her children. So for a period of time, she was a single mom on a very limited income, trying to do the best for her kids. You know, still working, still doing her volunteer work. But she had to have those moments with her kids where she said, I don't have the money to even buy you a snack at the pool or whatever. She didn't have the money. And she had to have that painful talk with kids who had before didn't realize, you know, the level of privilege that they had. With the incomes of both of their parents.
- [35:12]
Holly
An opportunity arose. It was through the United Nations Development Program. It's a big deal. She was going to work for the Economic Commission for Africa based however in Zambia, which is not exactly nearby and was a job that required a lot of travel. It was a welcome job financially as well as professionally. But there was really no practical way she could take her children with her. She had to make the hard decision and let the children go live with their father for stability and security for them though she visited as frequently as.
- [35:46]
Susan
She was able to and this was going to be the situation for the entirety of the rest of her kids childhoods. They would co parent as best of their ability but they were primarily with their father until the kids were all, you know, able to be going off to college in the United States by the way.
- [36:05]
Holly
So I alluded earlier to her husband's connections to the powerful and possibly corrupt. I'm not making an assertion here, but one thing this divorce did was to put Dr. Maathai and her actions on people's radar in government circles. So if there was any grudge match, revenge type of feelings, that's what was going to come to the top. Because now she was known to those in power as a stone, maybe in their shoe. And when she was 39, Dr. Maathai ran for the position of chairperson of the NCWK. Remember that's an umbrella organization of many, many women's organizations in the country. She lost by only three votes. That sounds very familiar because her husband's first run was lost by a very small margin. And she tried again next year. And according to her autobiography, she genuinely believed that the new president who had taken over after Kenyatta died, his name is Daniel Arap Moi, had absolute prejudice against her Kikuyu people and her in particular given her prominence as someone that was willing to speak out against corruption and exploitation. This second election was very, very clearly going Dr. Makai's way and I'm sorry to say her victory was absolutely tainted. There was another women's organization under the national umbrella whose leader was in Arap Moy's pocket. And they pulled out of the NCWK taking all of their members and most of the government funding for women's programs with them, leaving Dr. Maathai's organization with nothing but trouble and they now had to struggle to fund any of their programs. This really did look like a Direct hit. Here's another one. When she was 42, the parliamentary seat representing her home region was open and Dr. Maathai decided to campaign for the seat. And there was a law that you couldn't campaign while you were still working at a government job. So she had to resign from her position with the University of Nairobi to campaign for office. And then the court decided she couldn't run for office. She was ineligible because she hadn't registered to vote in the last presidential election. Where did this come from? This is like those obscure rules in baseball, you know what I mean? Like, oh, you didn't sing the I'm so sorry song and run around third base. Okay, well, she brought this matter to court. And the court was meeting at 9 in the morning the day of the deadline to file. And she had to file by three in the afternoon that day. And the judge literally held up the ruling and disqualified her from running so she couldn't run for office. And so she went back to the University of Nairobi and requested her job back and she was denied. And since she lived in university housing now, remember that, and she was no longer a staff member, she was evicted from her house.
- [39:02]
Susan
So after she was kicked out of university housing, she needed a place to live. She remembered that she had purchased a very small house as an investment earlier in her career and it was only in her name so she was able to have a place to live. It wasn't lush, but it was all she needed. Remember, her kids are at their dad's house, so not only does she have a place to live, but without a job, she also has a lot of time on her hands so she can put a lot more effort into the Greenbelt movement.
- [39:32]
Holly
You know, it's the whole premise of that show, Schitt's Creek, right?
- [39:35]
Susan
Yeah.
- [39:36]
Holly
They were made homeless by, you know, the man and then remembered that as a joke. They had once bought a town as a Christmas present for their 15 year old son. And that was like the place they had to go live. And I love that joke.
- [39:48]
Susan
Yeah, worked out really well for them. I think it's going to work out really well for her too.
- [39:52]
Holly
The UN held the third Global Women's Conference in Nairobi close to home. During the conference, Dr. Maathai was able to arrange presentations, seminars, even field trips for the attendees out to describe and show the work the Green Belt movement was doing in Kenya. She met high ranking women actually from several committees associated with the United nations. And the exposure Dr. Maathai was able to give the Green Belt movement at this Particular conference not only helped to expand international funding, it actually led to it jumping borders to 15 African countries, becoming the Pan African Green Belt Network. The benefits of the Green Belt movement were beginning to be apparent. And all of these organizers could see how this movement was not only correcting the environment, but improving culture and the welfare of the populace as well. Which unfortunately brought her into direct conflict with the undemocratic and often corrupt Kenyan government of Arat Moi, who would have preferred obedience. Officials from the government decided that the Green Belt movement shouldn't be under the umbrella of the ncwk. You know, that NCWK should focus on women's issues and not the environment. And so Dr. Maathai stepped down as the chairperson of that organization that she had fought so hard to get elected to and decided to focus then on the Green Belt movement. And then the Kenyan government began in earnest against Dr. Matthi and the Green Belt movement. You know what? Especially they didn't like that while the Green Belt was traveling about planting trees, they were also traveling about registering voters for the election and asking their representatives for constitutional reform. They were demanding free speech and advocating for laws that would be beneficial to the common people. Well, Daniel Arapmoy's government was a single party operation and they resented being pushed in this way. And they invoked a colonial era law prohibiting groups of more than nine people from meeting without an official license, which to me sounds very, very much like the post civil war reconstruction laws in America. Sometimes when you have to reach back so far into a problematic era to find a law that supports your position, you should probably think again, you know, yeah, like that's desperate and awful, sad and not progressive at all. And not respectful of the modern era.
- [42:24]
Susan
No. Not to dwell too much on this, but Kenyans had fought for a very long time for independence and they had just gotten it. But this is just the second administration in office and they're already doing things that they didn't like, that the British colonists were doing all of this land that Dr. Mathai was trying to reforest, they as the government were trying to give away to people as kind of a quid pro quo situation, just like the British colonists had done. So I just think it's so sad that you spend so long trying to get independence and have a democratic government that the first thing you do is consolidate power and start doing exactly what the people that you kicked out did.
- [43:11]
Holly
During the next two election cycles. Remember, Arat Moy came in as a sitting vice president who took over the term of his predecessor after the predecessor's death. But during the next two election cycles, Dr. Maathai asserted, and later experts seem to bear this out, by the way, that there was widespread election fraud that kept Daniel Aretmoy in power. For one thing, they actually changed the voting from secret ballots to what's called Q voting. That's Q U, E U E voting, where in order to vote, you have to stand in a line that corresponds to the candidate you wish to vote for. It's considered voter intimidation if there's eyes on you, looking at you getting in a certain line. In America, they used to make you vote with different colors of paper depending on who you were going to vote for. It's the same voter intimidation that was widespread. And he actually wished to run for a third term, but was prohibited from doing so by the Constitution.
- [44:07]
Susan
Yeah, he did a lot of things that just kind of raise your eyebrows, like what is he trying to do here? Even from the start of his administration, one of the first things that he did was release political prisoners from the previous administration. So he was having people out in society who owed him a debt for not being imprisoned.
- [44:28]
Holly
Yeah. In October, the year she was 49, Dr. Maathai learned of a plan to construct a 62 story Big Kenya Times Media Trust complex right in the middle of Uhuru Park. Uhuru is a Kiswahili word meaning freedom. Here's a nerd fact for you. Uhuru became Uhura for Nichelle Nichols character in Star Trek. Yes, it did.
- [44:54]
Susan
I looked at it.
- [44:55]
Holly
Yeah.
- [44:55]
Susan
I was like, that name sounds so familiar. Oh, yeah.
- [44:58]
Holly
Uhuru park was an important gathering place and place of peace in the middle of the city. Think the way that Central park is to New York City. Although Uhuru park is about a twentieth of the size, and here they want to fill the entire thing with an office building and 2,000 parking spaces and shopping malls. And incidentally, a giant statue of President Daniel Aratmoy four stories tall. Yeah. That's not. Yeah. Idol at all.
- [45:25]
Susan
Oh, and they wanted to put in a golf course there. A private golf course, of course. Now remember, these are all federal lands, so technically he shouldn't be able to create this project on federal lands. But he was just going for it.
- [45:39]
Holly
Also, Kenya would have to borrow large amounts of money from investors in order to finance a project of this scope. And Dr. Maathe protested strongly against this sort of violation of the city. As someone whose whole life is about empowering the poorest citizens to improve their lot, this kind of showy, wasteful spending on vanity projects for the 1% is something she literally could not tolerate. It went against everything she stood for. I mean, think about the majority of Central park was going to be paved and tall buildings put on it. You know, how would that feel if you were a resident of New York City? Yeah, you'd feel like your heart was being ripped out, kind of.
- [46:18]
Susan
I kept, you know what song kept playing into my head? Paved paradise and put it in a parking lot.
- [46:22]
Holly
Exactly.
- [46:23]
Susan
Over and over again. Yeah.
- [46:24]
Holly
We should link you up, actually, to the Bowery Boys coverage of the creation of Central park, the whole philosophy of the City Beautiful movement and what that meant to society. I actually think that would be nice background for understanding these kind of major city parks. Well, Dr. Maathai started a letter writing campaign to every official in every possible department, even including foreign officials within Nairobi, to save her own park. And when all of this bore no fruit, not to belabor the tree metaphor, she began writing to her connections all over Europe, connections she had made in the environmental movement to try to apply pressure worldwide, pressure on the government of Kenya. And Daniel Arap Moy was absolutely infuriated. He slagged her off in the media. He pretended the whole project was not going to take up the whole park. He was so angry that someone dared to impede, quote, progress that he and literally all of his spokespeople began calling her unhinged, a dangerous woman. And Parliament even came to the floor, you know, during the middle of Parliament meetings and expressed outrage at Dr. Maathai's actions. They said that her letters to foreign organizations made Kenya a laughingstock and she embarrassed the country.
- [47:46]
Susan
I think it was interesting they were accusing her of collecting money. For what? What is she doing with this money? You know, suggesting that there's nefarious actions going on on her part.
- [47:58]
Holly
But they called the Greenbelt Movement a, quote, subversive organization. And they called its members a bunch of divorcees and irresponsible, ungovernable women. And I would like to quote from Wangari Maathai's autobiography about that. I gave them a piece of my mind. Whatever else you might think about the women who run the Green Belt Movement, we are dealing with the rights of the public and the rights of the people. These are the kind of issues that require the anatomy of whatever lies above the neck. The press loved it so much. So much. She said Parliament was just being mean, chauvinistic and dirty. Everyone saw it. Fortunately, my skin is thick like an elephant. The more they abused and ridiculed me, the more they hardened me. I know I was right and I know they were wrong.
- [48:48]
Susan
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- [49:18]
Holly
When you join Metro plus tax for a limited time and subject to change max one offer per account. Wongari had a theory called the Wrong bus theory, which is sometimes you or your government gets on the wrong bus and goes the wrong direction. And it takes people different periods of time to look around and realize they're on the bus. And now you're out of the bus and you're moving on the right direction and everyone still on the bus will see you move with persistence and passion. You're very focused. Quite often people feel threatened, either people who are still on the wrong bus or people who are driving others on the wrong bus because you're asking them not to follow. And now you feel free to tell people you're all moving in the wrong direction. Your leader, too. And of course, a leader does not want to be told this. He certainly does not want to hear that the people he is driving are being told they need to get out of the bus. Well, this is where the conflict comes in between me and the government. The leader accuses you of misleading his people, misrepresenting his vision, misrepresenting him. Despite the project's unpopularity caused by Wangari Masai and friends, by the way, and the grief people were feeling about their park and its disappearance and everything Dr. Maathi could do, including filing injunctions in court, the project went ahead in November of 1989, and during a speech, President Moy said perhaps Maathi should be a proper woman in the African tradition and respect men and be quiet.
- [50:57]
Susan
Moy did have control over one thing, and that was government office buildings. And the Greenbelt Movement had their offices in a government office building. So they were evicted and Dr. Maathai moved the entire operation to her tiny little house. She went like that for quite some time, but she's still protesting, she's still getting international support. There was an international group that kind of went in together, including Care of Austria and a couple of Rockefellers. They bought the Greenbelt Movement a new house to have their operation out of. So she's getting a lot, a lot of support Internationally.
- [51:35]
Holly
And then the government investigated the Greenbelt movement every which way from Sunday harassment, auditing, regulatory hurdles and threats. Honestly, even with all of that, her protests and the attention from the worldwide media caused foreign investors to pull the plug on the Uhuru park complex in January of 1990. She was successful the next year, probably due to the widespread publicity from this, she received the Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco and the Hunger Project's Africa Prize for leadership in London. But media coverage of both of these honors was censored in Kenya. I mean, it's like she's public enemy number one. This is extreme. In January 1992, a pro democracy group that Dr. Matai was a prominent member of got some news that since Daniel Arat Moy had received pressure to make this election a multi party election and he was jumpy about his chances in a fair election, he was planning to hand the government over to the military as a way of subverting the rules of the constitution. And the pro democracy group turned this information around to the media who of course reported on it. And shortly afterward, the news came through backchannels that the government now had a targeted list of people they planned to assassinate and that two of the people on that list had died already in mysterious circumstances. And guess who else's name was on the list.
- [53:08]
Susan
She was going from place to place in the back of cars, you know, laying down under a blanket so that people couldn't track her actions. But at one point, she was in her house and it was surrounded by the military telling her to come out because they were going to arrest her. And she said, no, I'm not coming out. You don't want to arrest me, you want to kill me. And she was barricaded in her house for days.
- [53:32]
Holly
In her autobiography, she describes being absolutely terrified. After three days, their patience waned and they caught their way into her house like it was a sardine can and pulled her out and took her to jail. She and the other activists on the Go get them list that day were charged with spreading malicious rumors, sedition and treason. They were released on bail after only 36 hours, which I'm like, if it's really treason. Yeah, I mean, one of these things is not like the other.
- [54:02]
Susan
Yeah, like, yeah, I think that part of it was just to scare her into silence.
- [54:08]
Holly
Yep, yep.
- [54:09]
Susan
Because at this point, if they offed her and that list was out, it would be an international fiasco and there would be allies of hers raining down on Kenyan government, I think. So if they can just get her to be quiet and be a good little woman and sit in the corner and do whatever good little women do and just hush and she'd be fine. She could live.
- [54:32]
Holly
Well, that didn't work out because while she was out on bail, literally Right after this, Dr. Maathei and a group of others, largely women, took part in a protest, a hunger strike in a corner of the recently rescued Uhuru Park. They called it Freedom Corner. That was going to be kind of the location for protests that where everybody knew to look for dissent. You know, they. Their idea was they were going to pressure the government to release some political prisoners, some enemies of the government who hadn't had the influence or notoriety to get out on bail like Dr. Maathai had.
- [55:12]
Susan
A lot of the women that were in this protest were trying to get their own sons out of prison. So this is moms standing up and being mama bears and saying, it's time to focus attention on this and get our kids out of prison. They were unlawfully arrested. Their ultimate goal, however, I mean, they had. That was their first part. But their ultimate goal was free and fair and honest elections and to return to a multiparty platform. This was an underlying goal of Dr. Matthai's. It's been. It will continue to be for some time. So that's. This particular protest was very highly visible. Of course, the media gathered and supporters gathered and the women held their original strike for four days. Eventually, the military came in and they used force. They beat up women, specifically targeting Dr. Maathi, knocking her unconscious. Her supporters kind of grabbed her, she's unconscious, and took her off and brought her to the hospital. So they're beating up these women to try to get them to be silent.
- [56:19]
Holly
President Daniel Aratmay called her a threat to the order and security of the country and a mad woman who should not be allowed to speak in. I have to tell you, that was a public attack, a public attack that the international community paid attention to. The U.S. state Department, no less, said it was deeply concerned by the violence in Kenya. And what happened to the hunger strikers was unacceptable. And free speech must be protected. When in the course of events, the prisoners were still not released, they moved the protest to All Saints Cathedral, which is an Anglican church just across from Uhuru park, and continued their protests. Now, Dr. Mati wasn't always there, but she was there frequently for almost a year. They sought sanctuary and kept up their protest within the confines of a Christian church. That is a very classic maneuver to seek sanctuary in a church. And that is just what they did. Soldiers declined to Violate the sanctity of a church in order to pull the protesters out. It was a standoff. Some might say it was a siege. The prisoners were finally released mostly due to pressure from the world at large. A variety of international organizations and a number of US senators, including Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, put pressure on the Kenyan government. Either you substantiate the charges, like either you definitively produce the paperwork and the evidence that you should have detained them in the first place, or I know you like this good relationship you have with the US but you're not going to have it anymore. And the Kenyan government dropped the charges. How about this for awkward? Awkward. Super awkward. After this had happened, you know, the protest is still going on, like in the church or whatever, while that siege is happening on the world stage. Both Dr. Maathai and President Aratmoy went to Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. I imagine a meeting in a hallway would have been not good. Yeah. While he was there, he walked around and told everyone Dr. Maathi incited women to strip in the public on Freedom Corner, which they did.
- [58:43]
Susan
Right. They took their shirts off to show the symbol of motherhood, their breasts, and said, why would you beat your own mother, soldier? Why would you do this? To meet your mother. Even though not technically his mother. Right, right. That was their reasoning behind, you know, taking their tops off. There was, there was a good strategy, you know, it was deeply felt.
- [59:04]
Holly
So he turned that into some kind of bad thing and said, you should take this immoral woman off the. You should not allow her to speak at this conference. Well then they chose her to be a chief spokesperson, Mr. Ara Moy.
- [59:18]
Susan
But look what she's done for the thing that we're here to talk about, the environment.
- [59:23]
Holly
So we'll give you a link that her speech is televised, is, is taped. And during the speech she said, some of us have watched from afar, wishing our government officials would meet the challenges presently confronting the human species. She said that out loud on the platform. I 100% doubt he was in the room, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a little spy in there.
- [59:46]
Susan
Yeah, I mean, how bold and brave of her to do that. Even though she knew he was within he. She knew anything she said would get back to him, no matter where he was.
- [59:55]
Holly
So reluctantly, Daniel Aratmoy submitted himself and his government to the first multi party election in Kenya. It had been a long time coming and he had tried every which way to prevent it from happening, but it was here. Dr. Maathai and people that thought like her really tried to sort of make the opposition to him into one party. And I'm very sorry to say they didn't see the forest for the trees. There were a lot of different parties that had different agendas. All of them agreed that Daniel Erapmoy should go, but they just, despite everyone's efforts, just couldn't work together. I think it was fractured opposition instead of a gathered opposition. And purists in each party didn't want to work with the other people who didn't think exactly like they do. And therefore, guess who won the election? Daniel Arabmoy. And he crowed and walked around and said, see, this validates my position, everyone loves me, I'm the best, blah, blah, blah. But what it was, in fact was a failure of the opposition to work together. And it was heartbreaking. It was in addition to the opposition not uniting, Daniel Erap Moy's government ran the media. The media was state run. And whatever went out, went out. And you know, you can really burnish your reputation if you have control of what TV and newspapers people are allowed to consume.
- [61:22]
Susan
Right. Even when they were making that plan for Uhuru park, they wanted to build a huge building for the media, just for their media, Just for state media on that property too. Yeah. I wonder if they're thinking, well, if it's not in the newspapers, it's not going to go down in history. You know, they're trying to control the message that's going out to the world and the message that will go down in history because it's the official one. But this is a case where that obviously failed, you know, because we know her story.
- [61:54]
Holly
So to bolster his position, the next year there was an outbreak of, I guess we would call them ethnic clashes. What it turns out to be, you know, pressure builds up and people are desperate and ethnic conflicts break out kind of all over the country. And Daniel Aratmoy marketed those as something that Dr. Maathai and her friends were fomenting as a rebellion. It was her fault. See, I told you that multi party democracy was bad. Look what's happening to our country because of these people and what they're trying to do. Dr. Maathai traveled, she took press with her, foreign press with her to areas of violence in order to work for peace. She kind of brought the Greenbelt movement to violent areas. Like, let's all work together, we're all the same people. I am also a leopard. You are a leopard. Why should we disagree? You know, back from her childhood, let's Plant trees of peace together, you know, understand that we are all one people. But the government did not approve of that and wanted her to stop. Wanted her to stop advocating for peace and made all those areas of conflict no go areas and prevented her from going into those areas. The next year, the president actually claimed that Dr. Maathai and friends were responsible for distributing propaganda inciting her people, the Kikuyus, to attack his people. And one of her friends was kidnapped and she decided to go into hiding. She was invited to a conference and said, I think I'm going to be prevented from leaving. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be arrested. I'm in hiding, can't come. Yeah, thanks for inviting me, friends, but I have a problem with my travel. And guess who broke her out of hiding with his influence? An unlikely person, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who is another polarizing figure in world history. People either seem to really love him or really hate him. He is nefarious and a hero, depending on who you talk to, but extremely powerful during the dual superpower era. And he sort of put some pressure on. And Daniel Aratmoy's like, I wasn't gonna prevent her from leaving. She's not in trouble. I don't know what you're talking about. And so she actually broke out and received some awards out in the wider world. She actually even went. One of them was she went to Chicago to receive the Jane Addams International Women's Leadership Award.
- [64:34]
Susan
How about that?
- [64:35]
Holly
I know, I know.
- [64:37]
Susan
I love that she is working globally and he is working just locally. You know, she's looking at the big, big picture, and her name is getting out there for good reasons, and his is not. In 1997, she's 57 at this point. She did make an unsuccessful run for another parliament seat. And she also at one point thought, you know what? I'm just going to run for president, and started to put together a campaign, but it fizzled out. Wouldn't that have been something if she didn't have so much on her plate that adding something big like that just was going to topple it all over? That would have been great.
- [65:14]
Holly
Now, there's a series here of. I mean, we can go over and over and over this, but there's a series of incidents where over the next five or so years, Dr. Maathai and supporters are out there either protesting the annexation of forest land for things like golf courses, or protesting allocation of wildlife and land to supporters of the government. Just in general, environmental protests that are violently put down by the military. And Dr. Maathai is arrested, beaten and arrested in most cases. Unfortunately for the president of Kenya, a lot of those protests included not only foreign press or foreign nationals that were activists, but video of the beating of Wangari Maathai went out into the wider world and the sentiment got elevated against the government of Kenya.
- [66:16]
Susan
Amongst all of that, Dr. Maathai had a person in her corner. She'd had her there forever. Her mother. Her mother didn't always understand the work that her daughter was doing. She didn't know why she was doing all these things that put her in danger, but she always, always supported her. And in 2000, Wangari's mother passed away. So she's dealing with all this violence and turmoil in her life and gets thrown into this deep grief over her mom.
- [66:48]
Holly
And, you know, we talked about this in part one. In Kenya, the oldest daughter and the mother are often seen as halves of the same person. So it's almost like half of her person has gone away. And, man, I can really relate. I can really relate to that. Yeah. So you have to move on with all of the hopes and dreams for the future. You have to take them into yourself and move on. Dr. Mothe took a little break. You know, how funny to think that this is a break. But she got a fellowship to teach at Yale. It's like, get me out of here for a little bit. She had been beaten and starved and thrown into jail and maligned in the press and in general lived in what others might consider fear. She actually says, and I don't have this written down, but she said what you have to do is just pretend you're not afraid.
- [67:38]
Susan
Right.
- [67:38]
Holly
Don't think of the consequences or else you won't do anything.
- [67:41]
Susan
True, true.
- [67:42]
Holly
Okay. That is a way to go. Well, she did get back to Kenya and had another coup. At last. At last the opposition had seen the light, that they had to work together. And Dr. Maathai ran for parliament as a candidate of the national Rainbow Coalition. This is the opposition to Daniel Areatmoy's government that finally came together as a powerful organization. And she was elected. She was elected and the Rainbow Coalition was elected.
- [68:14]
Susan
In that election, Dr. Maathai got 98% of the votes.
- [68:20]
Holly
And that's actually legitimate. Like, there's been no voter intimidation for that 98%. That is for real.
- [68:28]
Susan
Right. And in this election, President Moy had run out of options to run again. So there's this pro democracy group that's been fighting and battling for years to get seen and get organized he tried to put forth one of his loyalists on the platform to be president. And he also lost. Yes. Once in office, Dr. Maathai was appointed assistant minister of environment and natural resources for the government of Kenya.
- [68:59]
Holly
She also founded another party, Masingira Green party of Kenya. And that way they would put forth candidates that would run on a platform of environmental reclamation. It's kind of the culmination of what she'd been working for this whole time. So she's advocating for things in the public sphere. And now she's gotten to a position of power and basically is creating a way to make her initiatives officially. So now she's reached the pinnacle. All the work she's done throughout the years, all the personal sacrifice, the pain, the fear that she has suffered for years, she has now reached the top of the mountain. And all of the ideals that she had brought to her work are now going to be able to be enshrined in law in the new Kenya. You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries.
- [70:04]
Susan
You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first.
- [70:23]
Holly
Dr. Matai had become by this time a beloved national assemble. Tens of thousands of primarily women had been helped by her green belt program. She was known to all and called the affectionate nickname Mama Miti. The green belt movement has been operating in the background this whole time and will go forward. And she and her colleagues and participants were ultimately responsible for almost 40 million trees being planted. That's a legacy, isn't it?
- [70:52]
Susan
Here's another one. A couple years after she took her seat in Parliament, Dr. Maathi was traveling in Nairobi and got a call on her cell phone. So that's where we are, cell phone era. And the other person said, is this Wangari Maathai? Yes, it was a call from Norway. The head of the Nobel committee was calling to tell her that she was the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the very first person who was awarded this for environmental work.
- [71:22]
Holly
What are the criteria for the Nobel peace prize? And I quote from Alfred Nobel's will, the peace prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. Let me quote also from the committee, the Nobel committee that awarded her the prize in 2004. Dr. Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya. Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression nationally and internationally. She has served as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their situation.
- [72:11]
Susan
In her acceptance speech, one of the very first things she said was, as the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on the behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa and indeed the world. I am especially mindful of women and the girl child. I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices, take more space for leadership. And as a mother, I appreciate the inspiration this brings to the youth and urge them to use it to pursue their dreams. Later in the speech, she said, through the Green Belt movement, thousands of ordinary citizens were mobilized and empowered to take action and affect change. They learned to overcome fear and a sense of helplessness and moved to defend democratic rights.
- [72:56]
Holly
Inspirational on the world stage. We already knew that, but now it's official. Dr. Maathi and six other women Nobel Peace Laureates representing all the continents except Antarctica, poor Antarctica, decided to bring together their experiences in a united effort to strengthen support of women's rights around the world. The Nobel Peace Initiative. When she was 55, she joined American United States Representative Barbara Lee to plant a Tree on the U.S. capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. it is still there. We will give you a map if you want to go find it. It is a golden rain tree.
- [73:36]
Susan
What I loved most about this event was that it was organized by the Congressional Black Caucus as part of an environmental justice movement initiative. And Barbara Lee, who you just mentioned from California, she held her office for 27 years. She left just this very year and had been a friend of our old friend Shirley Chisholm. That's how long she had been in office.
- [74:01]
Holly
When she was 56, she was one of the eight women flag bearers at the 2006 Winter Olympics Open winning ceremony in Torino, Italy. Notably, I just want to say I don't know them all, but Susan Sarandon, Isabel Allende and Sophia Loren were some of the other women flag bearers at her Torino.
- [74:21]
Susan
What a collection. Wow. Okay, okay, cool.
- [74:25]
Holly
That same year, the year she was 56, she wrote her autobiography called Unbowed. And a number of times I looked up that word to make sure if it was unbowed or unbowed. That same year, inspired by Dr. Maathai, the United Nations Environment Program, with the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco, created the Billion Trees Initiative. Once upon a time, a foundation member in the United States told Maathai their corporation was planning to plant a million trees. And her response was, that's great. What we really need is to plant a billion trees. Challenge accepted, Dr. Maathai. They achieved their initial target of planting a billion trees. A billion. In 2007. The very next year, 2008, the campaign's objective was raised to 7 billion trees. And they hit it three months before. Their target of a climate change conference that was held in Denmark in 2009. As of this recording, they have changed their name and they are now the Trillion Trees Initiative. They are working on 1 trillion trees. If we get details on when that's accomplished, we'll come back and let you know. But it looks like they're doing a good job. It looks like they know what they're doing.
- [75:45]
Susan
Yeah. Does this all makes me want to plant trees and I don't know that I need any more in my yard, but I really want to plant one. We have to think about it.
- [75:52]
Holly
I am fascinated by the idea, and there is one in Washington, D.C. named after her. I'm fascinated by the idea of an edible forest or an edible garden, like where you plant things. And it's like, not necessarily just for you. I have a neighbor that has a cherry tree or a set of cherry trees, and after a bit, they just. They have a ladder and bags and they're like, please take some away. Yeah, from here I might plant those kind of trees.
- [76:16]
Susan
That's great. Have people coming in your yard for cherries or whatever.
- [76:20]
Holly
But I have that, like, in front of the fence area where I can just. They don't have to come in.
- [76:24]
Susan
Yeah, you have. You're on a corner lot, so you have a lot of accessible. I like it.
- [76:28]
Holly
Dr. Maathai was awarded France's highest honor, the Legion of Honor, that year. It's a big year, her 56th year. And that same year, a United States senator named Barack Obama, who was not yet the president, traveled to Kenya. Do you remember Susan said a lot earlier that Mr. Obama's father had been educated in America through that same program that Dr. Mothi was. Well, although I don't think they hung out. But she and Senator Obama planted a tree together in Uhuru park in Nairobi. And the pictures are so cute. It is teeny tiny. Sasha and Malia, they are so tiny and so cute. And Michelle's there. Everybody's there. Dr. Maathai looks amazing as she always does. We never even mentioned this. As beautiful as she is on the inside, she's also beautiful on the outside.
- [77:20]
Susan
I know.
- [77:21]
Holly
Just wait till you see pictures of her.
- [77:22]
Susan
Yeah. And I hate to, you know, break her down to something so superficial, but she's just adorable. You just want to hug her and I think her personality has that, that X factor that people are just drawn to her and they trust her and she just looks like that. I can't wait to cast her in books that I read.
- [77:43]
Holly
Right. You know, so during that ceremony, Senator Obama gave a speech about the importance of free press. Press freedom is like tending a garden. It has to continually be nurtured and cultivated. This citizenry has to value it because it's one of those things that can slip away if we're not vigilant. So Kenya was or had been acutely suffering from such non oppressed freedom. And Senator Obama worried that one day, you know, America and the world would suffer from a similar loss. So that was the cause that he chose to espouse on that day. Although he did tie it to environmentalism. So he did a good job.
- [78:26]
Susan
Yeah, of course he did. He's a very good speaker. She held her parliament seat until 2007. So she's 57 years old before she steps down. And you think she's got there and things are getting good and she kind of slows down, but she's not. I mean, we just told you just a little bit of what she was doing at the time. She was awarded so many honors that this podcast would be super, super long and maybe a little boring because it's just over and over again that we won't list them all right here.
- [78:56]
Holly
I mean, doctorates, board memberships, special honors, international recognition. It is just a list that would fill, I don't know, at least three pieces of notebook paper if you wrote them down by hand. One honor that we do want to mention that was given to her when she was 59 is the NAACP award. She shared the stage with Al Gore, who famously was a candidate for the United States presidency. He was deeply committed to environmental issues and environmental issues as they relate to the population in Africa. And so both of them shared the Stage at the 2009 NAACP Awards. I think that was pretty amazing.
- [79:38]
Susan
It is.
- [79:39]
Holly
In 2009, she published a book called the Challenge for Africa, which distilled all of her knowledge and experience with her insights, you know, into the strengths and weaknesses of the governments in Africa or governing in Africa and the necessity of environmental protection and how key it was to Africa's future.
- [80:00]
Susan
In 2010, the Kenyan government was drafting a new constitution, and Dr. Maathai and her organization lobbied for an inclusion of a clause guaranteeing Kenyans the right to clean and healthy environment in the Kenyan constitution. That is Article 42. So that's the impact that she she's having on government that she. They were denying her to have even a voice. And now she's writing things in the constitution.
- [80:28]
Holly
She's enshrining her movement into the constitution.
- [80:32]
Susan
Yep. In August of 2011, her brother Naritu Mutah died at the age of 82. He was the guy who got her an education that reached back to his little sister and pulled her up just like she did to her little sisters. Unfortunately, at this point, life had caught up to the powerhouse of Dr. Maathai. Earlier that year, she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And when her brother passed away, even though she was hospitalized, she insisted on leaving the hospital to attend the funeral of her brother. About a month later, on September 25, 2011, Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai died of ovarian cancer at the age of 71. She was honored with a state funeral. And per her wishes and in keeping with her commitment to the deforestation, her body was placed in a bamboo, which is a renewable resource, a bamboo framed coffin which was also made of water, hyacinth and papyrus reeds. It was draped in a Kenyan flag and passed by thousands of mourners to pay their respects as she went to a ceremony at Uhuru National Park. She was cremated and her remains ultimately replaced at the Whangari Maathai Institute of Peace and Environmental Studies at the University of Nairobi, which was opened in 2023. In 2014, a statue of her was dedicated at Benedictine College, which was the school that Mount St. Scholastica had merged with in the 70s. The statue was unveiled at the eve of her 50th college reunion. Her daughter Wangira helped the artist design the statue, which was placed at the school near a sugar maple tree planted by Dr. Maathai's class of 1964.
- [82:29]
Holly
The main contributor to the cost of the statue was her friend, Florence Conrad. Do you remember the going into the refrigerator? Friend from college, her second family, the person that made it a home, this other country that she had come to. Florence Conrad grew up and became Florence Conrad Salisbury and was instrumental in getting this statue erected for her friend and, you know, her sister, really. In 2016, the Nairobi county government honored Dr. Maathai by renaming appropriately Forest Road to Professor Wangari Maathai Road. It unfortunately does not travel past Uhuru park, which would have been like that nice full circle, but. But that's okay. We can't have everything. It is a main street and it goes right through the center of Nairobi. Dr. Maathai's daughter Wanjira is Also a powerful activist. She is the head of the Whangari Maathai foundation and continues and expands on her mother's work both in Africa and globally. So her philosophical legacy lives on and so does her physical legacy, if that makes any sense.
- [83:43]
Susan
Yeah, no, totally makes sense. Yeah.
- [83:45]
Holly
And that will bring us to the end of the life and legacy of Dr. Wangari Maathai. And now it's time for media. And as usual, we will start with books. I have to say her autobiography, Unbowed from 2006 is where you need to start.
- [84:04]
Susan
No argument. And she actually went back and did an edit on it later, so. Yeah, so she really worked on it. I think that this memoir, more than most of them that we read, really conveys her personality. And I think she's incredibly honest because she points out all of her mistakes she made, you know, and the lessons she learned from it. I, I, I really enjoyed it. And I think if you listen or read anything, you should do that.
- [84:32]
Holly
Two of the other books that she actually wrote are Replenishing the Earth, Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World, and the Green Belt Movement. Sharing the approach and the experience. I think both of those things go more into her, her work and her philosophy rather than her life. Another book that goes into the background. There are such chapters, you know, that talk about women's rights and political activism and different aspects of her life and go down deep into the background of those things. Not a straightforward biography, but I love this for a little background. Wangari Maathai, visionary environmental leader, political activist by Namalynda Florence. It is not as easy of a read as some of the others, but I do think it is an amazing source for kind of like the whys and the hows of different aspects of her life.
- [85:30]
Susan
What I really love about this subject is how many kids books there are. You know, there's more kids books than there are grownup books on her.
- [85:38]
Holly
You know, this is the second subject that that is true because there were so many kids books about Georgia Gilmore. Remember that?
- [85:46]
Susan
Yeah.
- [85:47]
Holly
And there's so many kids books about Wangari Maathai.
- [85:50]
Susan
I love it. And I wonder if there's somewhere out there there's a kid who's gonna read one of these books and then go on to be a biographer and write her biography. Cause she was so moved by it. Or Plant a Tree. Early chapter books. Dr. Wangari Maathai plants a Forest. It's a rebel girls book. It's very colorful. And she persisted. Wangari Maathai. It's part of the she Persisted series which are books on historical women. This one was written by Yukabeth Odahiya and illustrated by Gillian Flint. For kids who can listen to longer stories, you know, being read stories. Wangari Maathai, the Woman who Planted Millions of Trees by Franck Prevost and illustrated by Aurelia Fonti. Getting a little younger picture books. Wangari's Trees of A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter. Very cute. All these books are cute. They're cute and they're colorful. You know, she dressed in very long African style clothing and just bright colors. And so her books, you know, she's planting trees, she's into the environment and making the world green. So these books are just so colorful. I love it.
- [87:00]
Holly
There is a book written by Gwendolyn Hooks who is a. She also has. We're not gonna cover men at all. So let me recommend her Hungari book, Planting the Story of Wangari Maathai. And then I would actually like to also recommend her book about the life of medical pioneer Vivian Thomas. Vivian is a man who was an expert heart surgeon that was a victim of prejudice and racism, but was an innovator in that field. So it's called Tiny Stitches. And so we're never going to cover Vivian Thomas. So just reach out and read that book too.
- [87:37]
Susan
And the board book that I really liked was Restoration with Wangari maathai by Maureen McQuarrie, illustrated by Robin Rosenthal. But honestly, any kids book that you picked up that has her in it is probably good. I mean, I, I only can get my hands on so many of them. There you go.
- [87:55]
Holly
It's just such a colorful subject and also relatable to children. And you know what? We would like to know if you are inspired to plant a tree. Please send us a picture.
- [88:05]
Susan
Oh, I would love that.
- [88:07]
Holly
Yes, I would. I would love that. I'm going to plant a tree, right? Yeah. I'm probably going to be a giant fool and plant a cherry tree, which is an invitation for mess bird excrements. But Wangari Maathai would tell me it is a part of an ecosystem and they provide fertilizer.
- [88:27]
Susan
There you go.
- [88:27]
Holly
There you go.
- [88:28]
Susan
Well, that's what I think about my fish because I have planted tanks. They provide fertilizer for my plants.
- [88:32]
Holly
There you go.
- [88:33]
Susan
Yeah, yeah. And I think you just have to keep remembering her whole point of let's not overcomplicate this. You know, when she said that there was forestry people, like sciencey trained forestry people who wanted to get involved and explain all the science behind trees growing to these women. And she's like, no, this has to be simple. This is how we do it. Simple.
- [88:57]
Holly
And, you know, you and I get requests all the time for, like, how do I podcast? Like, what do I do? And there's like all this analyzing of methodology, and I'm like, have an idea, have passion. Buy whatever microphone up first and just talk into it.
- [89:14]
Susan
Right, exactly.
- [89:16]
Holly
The hardest thing to do is to go from none to one. Right, Right. Yeah. Everything after that is like getting on a slide.
- [89:23]
Susan
Yep. And if you overthink it, it's not gonna work.
- [89:27]
Holly
Right.
- [89:27]
Susan
You know, it's just.
- [89:28]
Holly
It'll keep you from starting.
- [89:29]
Susan
Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, even if nobody listens to your podcast, just do it to show yourself that you can do it.
- [89:36]
Holly
Okay, well, I will post a picture of my tree when I plant it. It's not quite time.
- [89:42]
Susan
No, it's not.
- [89:43]
Holly
Okay. So other places to look online. Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies has an extensive website. Also, I have a link to Kiswahili lessons that I a little bit butchered earlier in the show in part one.
- [90:00]
Susan
It's ambition, though. Thank you.
- [90:02]
Holly
Yeah, it's like, it's really interesting to look at. Also, the Sagana State Lodge website talks about that place that Queen Elizabeth was when she found out she was to become queen. Nobelprize.org has an article about Wangari Maathai. There is also a website called greenbeltmovement.org that will have a lot of things to say about her.
- [90:26]
Susan
And they are active on Facebook, there's some articles. They're active on LinkedIn, they're active on Instagram. The Greenbelt Movement organization were recipients of US Aid funds. And unfortunately their government webpage talking about.
- [90:41]
Holly
It has been taken down as far back as 2012. The heads of state in Africa during the 14th Africa Union Summit agreed that they would change the name of Africa Environment Day to Wangari Maathai Day in memory of Professor Maathai. So each year on March 3rd in Africa is now officially Wangari Maathai Day. Events held that day focus on celebrating her commitment to environmental responsibility and peace and good governance.
- [91:16]
Susan
There is a documentary and it is available on YouTube. It's from 2008. It's called Taking Root in the Vision of Wangari Maathai. And because she was still alive, she's actually in it. So I would suggest watching that. That would be good.
- [91:29]
Holly
There's another documentary called Our Land, Our Freedom, about how Kenya freed itself from colonialism. And we will provide you A link to that as well. There is a video of her funeral procession on YouTube, and you can see her woven coffin traveling down the streets. There's also video of Wangari Maathai's speech at the Rio conference. Remember the one where the president of her country was trying to discredit her and telling people that she was not qualified to be a speaker? So we're going to give you that speech. And I have another website that will kind of run you through what was happening in Kenya during the tenure of Daniel are at moy, how he came to power, what was going on. You know, don't just take it from us that he was, you know, Voldemort, but, you know, go ahead and read that for yourself and make your own decisions. You know, know, on that one, I.
- [92:26]
Susan
Don'T have anything else.
- [92:27]
Holly
And in closing, I would like to tell you a story that Dr. Maathai told during a movie that came out in 2009 called Dirt, in which she appeared. She told the story of how one person can make a difference. Here I go. We are constantly being bombarded by problems that we face, and sometimes we can get completely overwhelmed. The story of the hummingbird is about this huge forest being consumed by a fire. All the animals in the forest come out and they're transfixed as they watch the forest burning. And they feel very overwhelmed, very powerless. Except this little hummingbird. It says, I'm going to do something about the fire. So it flies to the nearest stream and takes a drop of water. It puts it on the fire and goes up and down, up and down, up and down, as fast as it can. In the meantime, all the other animals, much bigger animals, like the elephant with a big trunk that could bring much more water, they're standing there helpless, and they are saying to the hummingbird, what do you think you can do? You are too little. This fire is too big. Your wings are too little. Your beak is so small. You can only bring a small drop of water at a time. But as they continue to discourage it, it turns to them without wasting any time, and it tells them, I am doing the best I can. And that, to me, is what all of us should do. We should always be like a hummingbird. I may be insignificant, but I certainly don't want to be like the animals watching the planet go down the drain. I will be a hummingbird. I will do the best I can. Thanks for listening.
- [94:01]
Susan
Bye.
- [94:01]
Holly
If you liked what you heard today, please tell a few friends or leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. All of the links and recommendations will be up on our website, thehistorychicks.com and Dr. Maathai has her own board ever growing on our Pinterest account. We would absolutely love to see it. If you or your children or your friends decide to plant a tree. You know what? Plant a tree or run for office. It's a bigger commitment, but let us know either way. We'll be proud of you no matter what. A quick shout out to our friends in every library we have ever entered from Paris, France to Hilo, Hawaii and all points in between in both directions. The whole world. We love you librarians and you provide the kind of community service that makes a deeper impact than you'll ever know. Xo Xo this song at the end is Making Me Brave by King Sis and the lyrics really speak to lots of parts of Wangari Mate's life and I just couldn't believe how perfect they were to end her story. I'll see you next time.
- [95:15]
C
Up and leave Take a lot of courage just to live out your dreams Bigger picture I could see if I just close my eyes have the foresight to believe time don't move backwards it speeds me to the the future fitlessly charging forward when I open my mouth Though I may not know how I know I was born to sing Travel the world Wave baby girls very my best friend I'm manifesting.
- [96:08]
Susan
Good.
- [96:12]
C
Actually morning good kind of great Even on the bad days I thank God for making me brave living free wanna die when I'm 123 really wish that all my heroes would notice me so I could be one at the greats on a big stage Inspiring people to pray and give thanks cause somehow we made it Always protected by building our legacy Travel the world ways maybe C girls marry my best friend I'm manifesting I'm not concerned cuz whatever happens I'm good yeah I'm good actually more than good kind of great Even on the bad days I think God for making me brave brave brave brave brave brave brave oh more than good kind of great Even on the bad days I thank God for making me.