Black Women Comrades in the Struggle for Liberation

This post is part of our forum on “Black Women’s Activism in the African Diaspora.” 

“Dear Comrade,” began a letter from Amy Ashwood Garvey to Fumilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria.  In that letter sent on March 11, 1949, Mrs. Garvey went on to say “Enclosed, please find the paper which I return with thanks.”¹ Both women shared a reading whose title is not mentioned but that very likely spoke to their common interests as liberation activists. By sending this paper to one another, they were sharing ideas internationally from London to Lagos. Their transnational outreach to one another indicated a Pan-African proclivity for both women as well, with Mrs. Garvey representing the Caribbean and Mrs. Kuti representing Nigeria. This letter reveals that Mrs. Garvey and Mrs. Kuti were comrades in the struggle for global Black liberation. Both women were dynamic intellectuals, organizers, activists, Pan-Africanists, and advocates for women’s rights and development. They were both very strong willed and audacious as they took on the work of standing resolutely against oppressive regimes, institutions, and ideas that stifled the brilliance, potential, and freedom of Black people. This letter is an example of not only the connectivity of Black women activists from Africa and the Diaspora, but their intellectual thought towards building a global Black liberation movement with women at the helm.

Mrs. Garvey was indeed peripatetic and moved between the Caribbean, US, England, and Africa throughout her life. In each locale she left behind an honorable legacy of liberation organizing through programs, petitions, lectures, events, and institutions that she either founded or supported. Her connections to Africa were strong and, in fact, she invested much energy and time in supporting African liberation. As early as 1924 she was living in London where she met Nigerian law student Ladipo Solanke and helped to found the Nigerian Progress Union. She was given the Yoruba title Iyalode, which is reserved for influential women of high repute, “in appreciation of her love, interest and services for the Union as its organiser and in view of her position and future activities on behalf of the Union.”

She worked with well known Pan-Africanists George Padmore and C.L.R. James to found the International African Service Bureau in 1937. She also aligned with the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah along with George Padmore and T.T. Makkonen to organize the Fifth Pan-African Congress of October 13-21, 1945, which was held in Manchester. During the Congress she pointed to the lack of focus on Black women’s issues when she referenced the status of Jamaican women: “The women in the civil service who belong to the intellectual section take no active part whatever in the political development of the country.” Her words supported the idea that Black women’s liberation was marginalized since conversations primarily centered the issues of Black men. This thought about the status of Black women would figure prominently in her intellectual conversations with Mrs. Kuti.

From the tone of the letter that Mrs. Garvey penned to Mrs. Kuti in 1949, it is evident that she built a relationship with Mrs. Kuti that centered on their common interest in African liberation and the empowerment of women in Black freedom struggles. It was written on letterhead of the Afro Women’s Education Project, another new program that Mrs. Garvey was working to establish in London. It later became the Afro Women’s Center in 1954 that she developed to uplift, support, educate, assist, house, and equip women for their holistic (spiritual, cultural, social, and political) advancement. In the letter, Mrs. Garvey told Mrs. Kuti that “Your work and personality has impressed me greatly and I pray for your continued health and courage. I know that no danger however hard is too much for you to undertake in the emancipation of the minds of mother Africa. May God crown your efforts with success. I see everything and what’s more I know a lot.” With these words, she expressed her admiration for the character and work of Mrs. Kuti in her pursuits towards indigenous sovereignty in Africa. Her use of “mother Africa” emphasized the importance of gendering intellectual thought in freedom movements. She portrayed Africa as feminine, which challenged Black liberation movements that centered manhood and men’s issues.

Mrs. Garvey recognized Mrs. Kuti’s massive efforts towards gender equity and women’s progress in Africa. Mrs. Kuti was well known for her work concerning women’s development. She was a powerhouse who led a women’s war against the laws, court systems, and taxes of the British regime. This war was rooted in Yoruba women’s pre-colonial methods of collective activism that included petitioning, abusive songs, protests, and civil disobedience. Mrs. Kuti founded the Nigerian Women’s Union in 1949 to raise the standard of womanhood in Nigeria. In one instance, the protesting women who were with Mrs. Kuti referred to a British officer as an “insolent white man” and threatened to cut off his genitals and mail them to his mother. Mrs. Garvey greeted Mrs. Kuti in saying “I pray for your continued health and courage.”  She knew the costs of the work of anticolonialism in Africa. She knew it required stamina in health as well as heart and soul because it could be a dangerous undertaking. So she supported and affirmed Mrs. Kuti with a prayer and an acknowledgement to communicate that she was aware and that she understood the extent of her hardships in this fight.

On the second page of the letter, Mrs. Garvey says, “I wrote to you about the Federation of Afro Women, I am going to try to organize the continent. Right now I am in touch with large groups of women all over Africa East and South. It is incumbent upon us to work as one group to coordinate our forces when possible.” Apparently Mrs. Garvey  planned to organize the continent by using her emancipatory ideas to reach out to and build alliances with African women intellectuals and activists. She had already connected with women in East and South Africa and she set her eyes on West Africa, which is why she approached Mrs. Kuti in Nigeria about the Federation of Afro Women. Mrs. Garvey knew that there would be no true sense of liberation for African descended people without freedom in Africa. She was involved in movements internationally but had not begun one solely in Africa for the masses of African women. This would have been her most sizeable task and it indicated her fervor and the depth of her intellectual planning and outreach for empowering Black women globally.

Both Mrs. Garvey and Mrs. Kuti were comrades who worked vehemently towards African women’s liberation. They connected around their activism on behalf of Black women which both understood to be an integral, albeit underdeveloped, part of global Black freedom struggles. The letter of 1949, which was a precursor to the Afro Women’s Center later founded in 1954, exemplifies that notable Black women in Africa and the Diaspora were contemplating and indeed building a global Black women’s movement. Moreover, their aim was to ensure that women were not left behind in Black liberation. This letter is a gem that uncovers the intellectual mapping, Pan-African connections, and activist realities of Black women who were pioneers in organizing women across the continent for the liberation of the minds of mother Africa.