Educator, political campaigner, and women’s rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was born Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Olufela Folorunso Thomas on October 25, 1900, in Abeokuta, Nigeria, to prominent farmer Chief Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas and dressmaker Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu.
Ransome-Kuti was one of only six girls admitted to Abeokuta Grammar School in 1914. Her education there was the springboard to an all-girls finishing school in England. It is there, in the 1920s, that she discovered socialism and anti-colonialism and strengthened her ties to her people. After graduation, she returned to Abeokuta, where she became an educator.
At 25, she married Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a school principal and community activist. The couple were married for 30 years and had four children, including international music superstar Fela Ransome-Kuti.
Marriage forced Ransome-Kuti out of teaching but left her to pursue her passion for politics. In 1928, she started a self-improvement group for young women. After she and her husband purchased a car in 1936, she became the first woman in her town of Abeokuta to drive.
In 1944, Ransome-Kuti founded the Abeokuta Ladies’ Club, which later evolved into the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU), a move that illustrated her commitment to women’s political, social, and economic rights. Five years later, in 1949, she earned the moniker The Lioness of Lisabi after leading the women of Egba in a riot to take on both the British colonial administration and the traditional ruler, the monarch of Egba, Oba Ademola II. She and her followers challenged both over price controls and taxation after decades of gender discrimination. Tax policies began in 1918 and required girls as young as 15 to pay 3 shillings a year as an income tax. Men did not have to pay the tax until 18. Government agents often raided the girl’s homes, stripping them naked to ascertain their age in order to tax them. Agents worked on commission, and extortion was common. His palace was under siege, and the ruler accused of abuse of authority, Ademola II, resigned and fled.
In the wake of the Abeokuta Women’s Revolt, Ransome-Kuti was elected the first president of the AWU, whose membership included both elite, Western-educated Christian women and illiterate market women. She turned the AWU into a national organization under the name Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU) in 1949 and then the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies (FNWS) in 1953.
In 1959, Ransome-Kuti created the Commoner’s People’s Party in opposition to the colonial administration after being expelled from the Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC). She led the campaign for extending the right to vote to women and simultaneously championed Nigerian independence, which came in 1960. Under surveillance from Nigerian and foreign governments, accused of communism, and enduring rampant sexism, her passport renewal was denied, and her entry into the U.S. was prohibited. Despite these measures, Ransome-Kuti continued to travel around the country and abroad to fight for women’s rights.
Ransome-Kuti was still outspoken and active when, on February 18, 1977, her son Fela’s Lagos compound was raided by Nigerian soldiers. The seventy-six-year-old was thrown from a second-floor window, sustaining injuries from which she never recovered. She died in Lagos General Hospital on April 13, 1978, at the age of 77. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a major champion for women’s rights and arguably one of the most influential leaders of 20th-century Nigeria.
