structural:expansion, linguistic:voice_change, structural:scholar_edition, linguistic:paraphrasing, information:highlighting
Founding the Tanganyika African National Union: 1952–1955

Having sailed aboard the SS Kenya Castle, Nyerere arrived back in Dar es Salaam in October 1952. He took the train to Mwanza and then a lake steamer to Musoma before reaching Zanaki lands. There, he built a mud-brick house for himself and his fiancé, Maria; they were married at Musoma mission on 24 January 1953. They soon moved to Pugu, closer to Dar es Salaam, when Nyerere was hired to teach history at St Francis' College, one of the leading schools for indigenous Africans in Tanganyika. In 1953 the couple had their first child, Andrew. Nyerere became increasingly involved in politics; in April 1953, he was elected president of the Tanganyika African Association (TAA). His ability to take on the position was influenced by his good oratorical skills and by the fact that he was Zanaki; had he been from one of the larger ethnic groups he may have faced greater opposition from members of rival tribes. Under Nyerere, the TAA gained an increasingly political dimension, devoted to the pursuit of Tanganyikan independence from the British Empire. Nyerere himself was, according to Bjerk, "catapulted to prominence" as "a standard-bearer of the burgeoning independence movement".

On 7 July 1954 Nyerere, assisted by Oscar Kambona, transformed the TAA into a new political party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). Among the early TANU members were the three sons of Kleist Sykes, Dossa Aziz, and John Rupia, the latter an entrepreneur who had established himself as one of the wealthiest indigenous Africans in the country. Rupia served as the group's first treasurer and largely funded the organisation in its early years. The colony's governor appointed Nyerere to fill a temporary vacancy on its legislative council generated after David Makwaia was sent to London to serve on the Royal Commission for Land and Population Problems. His first speech at the legislative council dealt with the need for more schools in the country. When he said that he would oppose proposed government regulations to raise salaries for civil servants, the government recalled Makwaia from London to ensure Nyerere's removal.

At TANU meetings, Nyerere insisted on the need for Tanganyikan independence, but maintained that the country's European and Asian minorities would not be ejected by an African-led independent government. He greatly admired the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and endorsed Gandhi's approach to attaining independence through non-violent protest. The colonial government closely monitored his activities; they had concerns that Nyerere would instigate a violent anti-colonial rebellion akin to the Mau Mau Uprising in neighbouring Kenya.

In August 1954, the United Nations had sent a mission to Tanganyika which subsequently published a report recommending a twenty to twenty-five year timetable for the colony's independence. The UN was set to discuss the issue further at a trusteeship council in New York City, with TANU sending Nyerere to be its representative there. At the British government's request, the United States agreed to prevent Nyerere staying for more than 24 hours before the meeting or moving outside an eight-block radius of the UN headquarters. Nyerere arrived in the city in March 1955, as part of a trip funded largely by Rupia. To the trusteeship council he said that: "with your help and with the help of the Administering Authority we would be governing ourselves long before twenty to twenty-five years." This seemed highly ambitious to everyone at the time.

The government pressured Nyerere's employer to sack him because of his pro-independence activities. On his return from New York, Nyerere resigned from the school, in part because he did not wish his ongoing employment to cause trouble for the missionaries. In April 1955 he and his wife returned to his Zanaki homestead. He turned down offers of employment from a newspaper and an oil company, instead accepting a job as a translator and tutor for the Maryknoll Fathers, who were preparing a mission amongst the Zanaki. By the late 1950s, TANU had extended its influence throughout the country and gained considerable support. TANU had 100,000 members in 1955, which had grown to 500,000 by 1957.