History Department Cornerstones Lecture

Moral Rearmament and the Mau Mau Detention Camps in Kenya: Was this Cold War Cult Responsible for Torture? Or Racial Reconciliation?

Join the Department of History for a lecture by this year’s Visiting Cornerstones Chair in History Professor Anna Clark.

In 1954, the British detained thousands of Mau Mau rebels in camps, intending to “rehabilitate” them away from their revolutionary ways. Officials coerced confessions, and even tortured and murdered some detainees. Why did the British government put Moral Re-Armament in charge of one of the largest camps when it was a cult preaching racial reconciliation and apologizing for imperialism? Moral Re-Armament began in the 1920s and 1930s, based on confessions in small groups—Alcohol Anonymous was related to it. It was a worldwide cult preaching absolute honesty, unselfishness, purity, and love. They claimed they could get the Mau Mau to confess their misdeeds—and better rehabilitate them. But were they responsible for the tortures committed in these camps? The answers to this question illuminate questions of race, imperialism, and Cold War counter-insurgency.

Anna Clark is the 2026–27 Visiting Cornerstones Chair at the University of Richmond and professor of history at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches the history of imperialism, human rights, and sexuality. She has published widely in the history of sexuality, including Desire: A History of European Sexuality (2008, third edition 2026), and Alternative Histories of the Self: Sexuality and Secrets (2017). At Richmond, she will be working on a project on Moral Rearmament, a Cold War cult that claimed to criticize imperialism and racism. Her books also include Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in Britain, 1780-1845 (1987), The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (1995), and Scandal: The Sexual Politics of the British Constitution (2003).