In January 1960, representatives of Kenya's African, European and Asian communities gathered at Lancaster House in London to begin negotiating the framework for independence. The conference produced an agreement on a constitution and a commitment to majority African rule. It was the moment the British government formally acknowledged that Kenya would become independent. The negotiations were tense, complex and occasionally bitter. But they produced a framework that, imperfect as it was, gave Kenyans a path to freedom without the full-scale armed revolution that had devastated other colonies.