Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900–1978) was a Nigerian educator, women’s rights activist and anti-colonial campaigner. She led the Abeokuta Women’s Union in a famous campaign against unfair taxes on market women in the 1940s, founded national women’s organisations, and became one of the best-known African women of her generation. She was also the mother of the Afrobeat pioneer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
Early life and family
She was born Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas on 25 October 1900 in Abeokuta, in present-day Ogun State. Her parents were Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas and Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu. She grew up in a Christian family that valued education for girls as well as boys.
Education
In 1914 she became one of the first girls to attend Abeokuta Grammar School, which had previously admitted only boys. From 1919 to 1922 she studied in England at Wincham Hall School for Girls in Cheshire. While in England she began using her Yoruba name, Funmilayo, rather than her English names, a choice that reflected her growing pride in African identity.
On her return she worked as a teacher and devoted much of her early career to education, including literacy classes for women who had never been to school.
Marriage and children
On 20 January 1925 she married the Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a respected educator and principal of Abeokuta Grammar School, who shared her commitment to education and nationalism. He died in 1955. The couple had four children: Dolupo; Olikoye, a doctor who later became Nigeria’s Minister of Health; Olufela, the musician known worldwide as Fela Kuti; and Bekololari (Beko), a doctor and human rights activist.
Activism
From the Abeokuta Ladies Club to the Abeokuta Women’s Union
In 1932 she helped establish the Abeokuta Ladies Club, which at first focused on charity and education for middle-class women. Over time she opened the club to market women and traders, who faced heavy taxes and harsh treatment from officials. In 1946 the club was renamed the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU), and it grew into a mass movement with thousands of members.
The Abeokuta tax revolt
In the late 1940s the AWU led protests, petitions and large demonstrations against taxes imposed on women by the Alake of Abeokuta, who ruled under the British system of indirect rule. The women argued that they were being taxed without representation. Their campaign succeeded: the tax on women was suspended in 1948, and in 1949 the Alake, Oba Ademola II, temporarily left the throne. The protest is remembered as one of the most important women’s movements in colonial Africa.
National and international work
Building on the AWU’s success, she helped create the Nigerian Women’s Union in 1949 and the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies in 1953, which campaigned for women’s voting rights, education and political representation. She was a founding member of the NCNC and became one of the first women to sit in the Western House of Chiefs. Internationally, she served as a vice-president of the Women’s International Democratic Federation.
Her travels to Eastern Europe and China during the Cold War worried the colonial authorities. In 1957 they refused to renew her passport, and in 1958 the United States refused her a visa. Her passport was restored after independence.
Honours
She received the national honour of the Order of the Niger in 1965 and the Lenin Peace Prize in 1970.
Death
On 18 February 1977 soldiers raided Kalakuta Republic, the Lagos compound of her son Fela. During the raid she was thrown from an upper-floor window and badly injured. She never fully recovered and died in Lagos on 13 April 1978, aged 77.
Legacy
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is celebrated as a pioneer of women’s rights in Nigeria and a symbol of courage against injustice. Schools, streets and statues in Abeokuta and beyond bear her name.
