1954 — Saba Saba Day

On July 7, 1954, Julius Nyerere founded the Tanganyika African National Union, the party that would lead his country to independence from Britain in 1961. Tanzania still marks Saba Saba, Swahili for "seven seven," as a national holiday honoring the movement that became the still-ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi.

July 7 carries a second meaning in the region. In Kenya, on July 7, 1990, thousands gathered at Nairobi's Kamukunji grounds demanding free elections and multiparty democracy. Those protests set Kenya on the road to multiparty rule, giving one shared date two distinct liberation stories, in two neighbouring countries, to carry forward together.