The mother of the music legend, Fela Kuti, was born this day, 25th of October in 1900.
Google is posthumously celebrating her today with a Google Doodle, a special temporary stylisation of the Google logo.
She was a teacher, political campaigner, women’s rights activist, and a traditional aristocrat. Most people only know her as being the first Nigerian woman to drive a car.
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti shouldn't just be known as Fela's mum. She was revolutionary. A true Feminist! Sadly, all they ever taught us about her in pry school was that she was the first woman to drive a car. https://t.co/nMI4Xm2eAS
— Yettie™? (@yettieShuga) October 25, 2019
Born as Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti achieved many firsts. She was the first female student at the Abeokuta Grammar school where she completed her secondary school. Afterwards, she went to England to study. Then she returned to Nigeria to become a teacher.
She was a very powerful force that advocated for the Nigerian woman’s right to vote.
Her activism earned her the title of the Doyenne of female rights in Africa as well as her being called the ‘Mother of Africa’.
She was a mother to Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a musician; Beko Ransome-Kuti, a doctor; and Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, a doctor and one-time health minister of Nigeria. She was also grandmother to musicians Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti.
In the 1920s, Ransome-Kuti organised literacy classes for women and started a nursery school in the 1930s.
In 1942, She founded the Abeokuta Ladies’ Club (ALC) for educated ladies involved in charity. The club later became the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies (FNWS). She founded this group to fight for women’s rights and it included women from all parts of Nigeria, and as such had to be expanded.
Ransome-Kuti was a member of the political party Nigeria Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) and was the only woman in the party’s delegation to London in 1947 to kick off negotiations for self-governance from the colonial government.
https://twitter.com/historyintwits/status/1187642628894015488?s=20
She was later expelled from the party for failing to obtain a Federal parliamentary seat.
She continued her activism, though, with her sons’ activism overshadowing hers in the latter days of her life.
In 1978, 1000 soldiers surrounded her son Fela’s compound, a place known as the Kalakuta Republic. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was thrown from a third-floor window. She went into a coma in February 1978 and died on the 13th of April 1978 from injuries sustained during the fall.
Fela would later sing about the incident in his song, Unknown Soldier (1979). The song includes lyrics such as:
“One thousand soldiers them dey come/People dey wonder, dey wonder, dey wonder
“Where these one thousand soldiers them dey go?/Look o/Na Fela house Kalakuta/Them don reach the place, them dey wait/Them dey wait for…
“Order!
“Fela dey for house/Beko dey there too/Them mama dey there too/Beautiful people dey there too
“Them throw my mama out from window/Them kill my mama/Them kill my mama”
This is not the first time that Google is honouring a Nigerian citizen on Google Doodle. On 21 July 2019, the technology company featured late Nigerian writer, Buchi Emecheta on what would have been her 75th birthday.
Late Nigerian footballer Sam Okwaraji, who slumped and died during a match between Nigeria and Angola on 12th August 1989, was also honoured by Google on what would have been his 55th birthday on 20th May 2019.
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was one of the women honoured on Google Doodle during the 2019 Internation Women’s Day that took place in March. Adichie was the only African among the 13 women that were featured.
Many Nigerians do not know about Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti but by featuring her on Google Doodle, Google reminds us of her great contribution to the fight for the emancipation of women through girl education, civil right and shattering the status quo. Her courage would forever shine as an example for young women, in particular, that they can strive for whatever they believe in. And today, in what would have been her 119th birthday, we join Google in honouring the ‘Mother of Africa’, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.
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