ABSTRACT
Modibo Keita, Mali's first president, was born in Bamako in 1915. A graduate of the Ecole William Ponty in Dakar, he was a schoolteacher who became a political activist. In 1945, he and Mamadou Konate founded the Bloc Soudanais political party, which eventually merged with the broader West African political grouping, the Rassemblement Democratique Africain. Yoro Diakite, an army captain who was the director of the Inter-Services School at Kati, had sensed that the time was nearing when the public would rally behind a military coup d'état. The military committee was initially composed of fourteen members. Many of them shared bonds of friendship from their days at the Kati Inter-Services School or at military camps and were from the western region of Kayes, and a number were of Khassonke origins. However, regional and ethnic affinities figured less significantly than the collegial ones established through experiences in military service.
