‘For their freedoms’: The anti-imperialist and international feminist activity of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria

Abstract

Synopsis Because most of the nations of the African continent did not gain independence until the second half of the twentieth century, sub Saharan African women have appeared rarely in histories of international feminism. Cheryl Johnson Odim begins to remedy this omission in her consideration of the first cohort of African women to be politically active beyond the continent. Johnson-Odim gives her most complete account of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the Nigerian born, British educated, “mother of women's movements in Nigeria and an inspiration to those in other parts of Africa.” Among the international women's organizations in which Ransome-Kuti was active was the Women's International Democratic Federation, a post WWII organization that grew out of European resistance movements and was connected to the Communist International. The WIDF, about which much is yet to be learned, played a major role in recruiting women leaders from Asia and Africa, and bringing them onto an international stage, including at the United Nations.