By Chisomo Phiri
As part of honouring late John Chilembwe, President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera has today ordered that Phalombe District Hospital should now be called John Chilembwe District Hospital.
Chakwera has said this at Providence Industry Mission (PIM) in Chiradzulu district where he is leading Malawians in commemoration of Chilembwe Day that falls on January 15 every year.
Born in June 1871,John Nkologo Chilembwe was a Baptist pastor, educator and revolutionary who trained as a minister in the United States, returning to Nyasaland in 1901.
He was an early figure in the resistance to colonialism in Malawi then opposing both the treatment of Africans working in agriculture on European-owned plantations and the colonial government’s failure to promote the social and political advancement of Africans.
Soon after the outbreak of the First World War, Chilembwe organised an unsuccessful armed uprising against colonial rule.
He died on February 3,1915.
