Historians approximate Senior Chief Koinange was born in 1868. He witnessed the arrival of Count Teleki, the first white man in Kikuyu land and was appointed Chief in 1905.

Records state he was the first African to grow coffee, which was uprooted by rival white farmers. This punitive act instigated his initial protest against the British administration. To counter this act of inhumanity he founded the Kikuyu Central Association.

By the 1920's when incitement by colonial governance heightened he took his people's grievances to the House of Commons in the United Kingdom.Senior Chief Koinange travelled by sea for ….. months, an unparalleled feat in that era.

The trip came to naught. Disgruntled by the reception, Senior Chief Koinange and his peers formed a movement that came to be known as Mau Mau. This entity metamorphosed into a liberation movement for the independence of Kenya.

Branded an insurgent by the administration, in 1952, he was arrested, tried and detained. After nearly nine years in detention, he was finally released, after his family aided by Liberal British parliamentarians engaged in a rigorous lobby and campaign. He died in 1960, three years before independence.

This book authored by his grandson Jeff Mwaura Koinange, is a tribute to the Senior Chief and the martyrs who fought for the liberation of Kenya.