African Women Who Fought for Scholarship & Literature
4 women in the archive worked for scholarship & literature. They came from different countries and different centuries, but each of them saw a wrong that others accepted and set out to change it. Read their stories to see how the same cause looked from very different lives.
4 women in the archive
IndependenceDeolinda Rodrigues
Angolan revolutionary, poet and translator who corresponded with Martin Luther King Jr., co-founded the MPLA's women's organisation, marched with the guerrilla Camy Squadron, and was captured and executed at 29. Angola marks Women's Day on the date of her capture.
IndependenceMuthoni Likimani
Kenyan writer, broadcaster, and Mau Mau supporter who documented the untold stories of women in Kenya's independence struggle through her groundbreaking book 'Passbook Number F.47927'.
Pre-ColonialNana Asma'u
Scholar, poet, and educator in the Sokoto Caliphate who built one of the earliest known systems of women's education in West Africa, training female teachers who carried learning into rural communities.
ContemporaryTsitsi Dangarembga
Zimbabwean novelist and filmmaker whose debut, Nervous Conditions, became the first novel in English by a Black Zimbabwean woman. Arrested in 2020 for protesting government corruption.