Born: 8 September 1928, Malawi
Died: 12 January 2016
Country most active: Malawi
Also known as: Rose Lomathinda
Rose Lomathinda Chibambo was a prominent political figure in Malawi (called Nyasaland under British colonial rule) leading up to and following its independence in 1964, organizing women as a political force.
Having married while in her teens, she completed secondary school at night in 1948 while pregnant with her first child; she went on to have five more by 1961. In 1952, she started organizing women in the then-capital city of Zomba, protesting the colonial government. In particular, the British tried to impose federation, putting Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe under white settler rule; Chibambo famously interrupted a meeting between chiefs and federation representatives to call for Malawian autonomy. She went on to lead the influential Women’s League, later saying “women should be part and parcel of the whole movement, even of running the country. Women should be involved in decision making. That was my aim.”
In January 1959, Chibambo was chosen as one of four people who would make up an executive committee to lead the movement if Dr. Hastings Banda, president of the Nyasaland African Congress, was imprisoned or killed. That March, Chibambo was arrested two days after giving birth to her daughter, reportedly taking the infant with her to Zomba Prison. Other leaders had already been imprisoned weeks earlier; Chibambo was given a temporary reprieve due to her pregnancy. Even after her release, she and her family faced continued harassment from the colonial government, and they eventually fled the country, returning when Malawi gained independence in 1964. However, although she was named the first minister in now-prime minister Banda’s new cabinet, she soon came into conflict with him about policies and his increasingly authoritarian behavior. In 1965, she was forced into exile for almost three decades. She did not return until 1994, after Banda was deposed and democracy returned to the country.
In the 1990s, she became a businesswoman in Mzuzu, and was active in political and church causes, such as supporting prisoners and orphans of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Malawi’s president named a street in Mzuzu City after her in 2009, and she has been featured on the country’s 200-kwacha banknote since 2012. In 2019, Dr. Timwa Lipenga published Lomathinda: Rose Chibambo Speaks, a collection of conversations with her about her life.