activities. Mboya reached out to other labour leaders across the world, more so in the ICFTU, including American A. Philip Randolph, with whom he was close. Mboya raised funds to build a headquarters for the KFL. In 1956, after Mboya had returned from the United Kingdom, the colonial government allowed black Africans to run for office and serve in the Legislative Assembly. Tom Mboya was elected from Nairobi. He was elected secretary of the African Caucus (called African Elected Members Organization – AEMO) and continued a campaign for independence, as well as seeking freedom for Jomo Kenyatta and other political prisoners. He used his incredible diplomacy skills to get support for the independence movement from foreign countries. In 1957, he became dissatisfied with the low number of African leaders (only eight out of fifty at the time) in the Legislative council and decided to form his party, the Nairobi People's Convention Party. At that time, Mboya developed a close relationship with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who, like Mboya, was a Pan-Africanist. In 1958, during the All-African Peoples' Conference in Ghana, convened by Kwame Nkrumah, Mboya was elected as the Conference Chairman at the age of 28. In 1959, Mboya along with the African-American Students Foundation in the United States organized the Airlift Africa project, through which 81 Kenyan students were flown to the U.S. to study at U.S. universities. Barack Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was a friend of Mboya's and a fellow Luo who received a scholarship through the AASF and occasional grants for books and expenses. Barack Obama Sr. was not on the first airlift plane in 1959, because he was headed for Hawaii, not the continental US. In 1960, the Kennedy Foundation agreed to underwrite the airlift, after Mboya visited Senator Jack Kennedy to ask for assistance, and Airlift Africa was extended to Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now Tanzania), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Nyasaland (now Malawi). Some 230 African students received scholarships to study at Class I accredited colleges in the United States in 1960, and hundreds more in 1961–63. In 1961, Jomo Kenyatta was released and, together with Oginga Odinga and Mboya's Nairobi People's Convention Party, joined with Kenya African Union and Kenya Independence Movement and formed the Kenya African National Union (KANU) in an attempt to form a party that would both transcend tribal politics and prepare for participation in