Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a Nigerian feminist and political leader who was the leading advocate of women’s rights in her country during the first half of the 20th century. Her parents were Christians of Yoruba descent. She was the first female student at the Abeokuta Grammar School (a secondary school), which she attended from 1914 to 1917. After teaching briefly at the school, she studied in England (1919–23), where she dropped her English names and shortened her Yoruba name to Funmilayo. Having resumed teaching at Abeokuta, she married Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, an Anglican clergyman and teacher, in 1925. In 1932, when her husband became principal of the Abeokuta school, she helped organize the Abeokuta Ladies' Club (ALC), initially a civic and charitable group of mostly Western-educated Christian women. The organization gradually became more political and feminist in its orientation, and in 1944 it formally admitted market women (women vendors in Abeokuta’s open-air markets), who were generally impoverished, illiterate, and exploited by colonial authorities. In 1946 the ALC changed its name to the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU) and opened its membership to all women in Abeokuta. Ransome-Kuti became the first president of the AWU (1946) and headed its successor organizations until her death. Under her leadership the AWU became a national organization, renaming itself the Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU) in 1949 and the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies (FNWS) in 1953. The AWU initially campaigned against price controls, which drastically limited the incomes of market women, and for fair treatment of market women by the government. It also protested a special tax on women imposed by the local ruler, Sir Ladapo Ademola II. From 1947 the organization led large demonstrations against Ademola’s government, which led to his temporary abdication in 1949. The broader goals of the AWU included greater educational opportunities for women and girls, the enforcement of sanitary regulations, and the provision of health care and other social services for women. Ransome-Kuti also participated in the Nigerian independence movement, attending conferences and joining overseas delegations to discuss proposed national constitutions. She was a member of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), a political party that advocated for Nigeria’s self-government. She also supported the West African Students’ Union (WASU), a platform for promoting Pan-Africanist ideas and decolonization. Ransome-Kuti received the Lenin Peace Prize and was awarded membership in the Order of the Niger for her work. In her later years, she supported her sons' criticism of Nigeria's military governments. She died at the age of 77 after being wounded in a military raid on her son Fela's commune, known as the Kalakuta Republic. Ransome-Kuti's children included the musician Fela Kuti, doctor and activist Beko Ransome-Kuti, and health minister Olikoye Ransome-Kuti. She was also the grandmother of musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and the grandniece of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.