Google celebrates Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s 119th birthday with a doodle

Multinational technology giant, Google, is celebrating the 119th birthday of late Nigeria teacher, political campaigner, women’s rights activist and traditional aristocrat, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti with a Doodle.

The Doodle, illustrated by Nigerian-Italian guest artist, Diana Ejaita, celebrates a formidable leader who founded what many refer to as one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century. Diana Ejaita weaves together Ransome-Kuti’s likeness with women whose lives she changed. The Berlin-based artist’s style of combining dramatic blacks and soft colours to show “the strength of femininity” aligns well with Ransome-Kuti’s powerful story.

Born on this day in 1900 in Abeokuta, the current capital of Nigeria’s Ogun state, the former Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas grew up witnessing Great Britain consolidating control over Nigeria. As the grandchild of a slave, she became one of the first girls to enrol in Abeokuta Grammar School, before travelling to Cheshire in England to continue her education. By the time she returned home, she’d dropped her birth names and preferred to speak Yoruba.

In 1932, Ransome-Kuti established the Abeokuta Ladies Club (ALC), fostering unity between educated women and poor market workers and setting up the first adult education programs for Nigerian women. Renamed the Abeokuta Women’s Union in 1946, the organization boasted a membership of some 20,000 and pushed for healthcare, social services, and economic opportunity. Imprisoned in 1947 for protesting against unfair treatment towards women, Ransome-Kuti and her followers also led the charge to abdicate a corrupt local leader.

A trailblazer in many ways, Ransome-Kuti was also the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. She was also the only woman in Nigeria’s 1947 delegation to London, which lodged a protest and set the nation on the path toward self-government. As one of the few women elected to Nigeria’s house of chiefs, she was recognized for her advocacy work on behalf of women’s rights and education and revered as the “Lioness of Lisabi” and the “Mother of Africa”.

“As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned,” said Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the Nigerian educator and activist who fearlessly campaigned for women’s rights and the liberation of Africa from colonial rule. Her daughter, Dolupo and three sons, Beko, Olikoye, and Fela likewise became leaders in education, healthcare, and music, continuing their mother’s legacy of activism and advocacy.