Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti: the teacher who marched 10,000 women on a king
She fought unfair taxes on market women in Abeokuta, forced a ruler to step aside in 1949 and took Nigeria's women's cause to the world.
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Abeokuta — Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is often remembered as the mother of the musician Fela Kuti. Her own record is just as striking.
A first at school, then in the classroom
Born in Abeokuta on 25 October 1900, she was the first female student at Abeokuta Grammar School. As a young teacher she organised some of Nigeria's earliest preschool classes and arranged literacy classes for lower-income women.
The women of Abeokuta
In the 1940s she founded the Abeokuta Women's Union. It demanded better representation for women in local government and an end to unfair taxes on market women. She led marches and protests of up to 10,000 women, which forced the Alake of Egbaland, the ruling monarch, to abdicate temporarily in 1949.
From Abeokuta to the world
She went on to take part in the independence movement, attending conferences and joining delegations abroad on proposed national constitutions. She spearheaded the Nigerian Women's Union and the Federation of Nigerian Women's Societies, and pressed for women's right to vote.
In 1953 she became vice-president of the Women's International Democratic Federation. British colonial authorities refused to renew her passport in 1957 and the United States denied her a visa in 1958, both citing suspected communist ties. She received the Lenin Peace Prize and membership of the Order of the Niger.
In later life she supported her sons' criticism of military governments. She died in 1978, aged 77, after being wounded in a military raid on family property.
Background: Wikipedia.
