Two teachers married at the Musoma mission on 24 January 1953. Eight years later the groom led Tanganyika to independence, and for the rest of his life the nation called him Mwalimu, the Swahili word for teacher.
Two teachers
Maria Gabriel Magige trained as a teacher at Sumve Teacher Training College and taught in the Musoma area. Julius Nyerere, educated at Makerere and the University of Edinburgh, was a teacher too. They married the year after he returned from Scotland, and he soon left teaching to lead the Tanganyika African National Union.
State House and Butiama
Nyerere led Tanganyika to independence in 1961 and became president of the new union of Tanzania in 1964. Maria served as first lady from 1964 to 1985. In photographs from those years she is often beside him at state events, including the visit of Samora and Graça Machel.
Stepping down together
In 1985 Nyerere stepped down voluntarily, a rare choice among African leaders of his generation, and the couple settled in his home village of Butiama. He died in London in October 1999 after 46 years of marriage. Maria remained in Butiama, receiving visitors who came to honour him.