Birthday of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (Nigeria)

Born on this day in 1900, Funmilayo was an anti-colonial activist and feminist from Nigeria. In 1944, she founded the Abeokuta Ladies’ Club, which later evolved into the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU). The Ladies club first organized literacy workshops for market women before becoming more political. She soon organized campaigns fighting unfair price controls and taxes imposed on market women by the colonial authorities and their middle men. Her anti colonial taxing campaigns continued across multiple years with one mass demonstration taking place on 29 and 30 November 1947 with more than 10,000 women participating. Taxation at the time was separate for women and men and was particularly oppressive for women. Also involved in the campaign for Nigerian sovereignty, she wrote about the origin of Nigerian women's suffering in an article in the Daily Worker, “We had equality till Britain came.” Although she received a western education, she made a point of speaking Yoruba rather than English, even in her dealings with the colonial authorities. Beyond her remarkable contributions to women's status in Nigeria she is also remembered as the mother of Afrobeat musician and political activist Fela Kuti.