The killing of Lilian Margaret Burton and Black and White Nationalisms in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in the 1960s

The symbolic significance of politically-motivated killings of Europeans during the nationalist struggle against colonial power in Africa in the 1950s and 1960 has long eluded the scrutiny of most historians. For although many historians have demonstrated the ways in which such killings shaped the pace of the decolonisation process in the continent, they have seldom shown how the killings themselves became an important terrain on which competing black and white nationalisms were played out. This article draws on recent academic discourse that places a premium on the political significance of death to explore the ways in which the murder of Lilian Margaret Burton by African activists of the United National Independence Party on the Zambian Copperbelt in 1960 informed rival nationalisms prior to the country's independence in 1964.