In 1977, soldiers stormed a Lagos compound and threw a 77-year-old woman from a second-story window; a year later her son carried her coffin to the gates of military headquarters. This deep dive traces the life of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a pioneering educator, anti-colonial organizer, and mother of Fela Kuti who once forced a sitting king to abdicate.

Born into colonial and aristocratic privilege, she was groomed to be a proper Victorian woman, then rejected that premise, dropping her English names to reclaim her Yoruba identity. Her literacy work with market women transformed her charity club into a mass political union that weaponized culture, language, and solidarity against exploitative taxation.

• Restructuring her ladies' club into the Abeokuta Women's Union open to all women
• Organizing thousands of women against unju ...