This American Life - 876: Bigger Than Me

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

When history comes knocking, you have to figure out what to do. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Brittany’s job is to answer anonymous calls and texts from people in the military. This year, she’s gotten more than usual–most of them are wondering about what to do with orders they’ve been given. Or orders they’re afraid they’ll get someday in the future. (9 minutes)Act One: Jad Abumrad tells the story of the "ideological genealogy” of Fela Kuti’s anti-colonial politics–his mother. In late 1940s Nigeria, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti found herself at the center of a big, historical moment: an uprising led by thousands of women selling goods in Nigeria’s markets. Jad goes searching for who she really was, and how she became the person who galvanized a movement when history demanded it of her. (45 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science delivers.com. A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, this Americanlife.org. Okay, so I want to tell your story, and I'm going to start with the part you probably already know about.

In November, six Democrats, all veterans of the U.S. military or intelligence communities came out with a video, saying to people in uniform, you took an oath like we did. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. Those are senators Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin and Congressman Chris Duluzio. They did not specify what illegal orders they might be referring to. At the time, just like now, Trump administration was shooting boats of supposed drug runners out of the water off the coastal Venezuela.

And lots of military experts and veterans were saying this did not seem to be illegal. In the past, if we found boats of drug runners, we arrested them. We didn't just kill them on the spot and cold blood with no due process. The video also didn't mention the president trying to order the National Guard into American cities. Portland, in Chicago, where judges stopped the orders, saying they were illegal. Like I say, the video mentioned no specific orders at all. And really, the video might have vanished into the daily noise of a million news stories and online videos like almost everything else does these days.

It really could have come and gone and been forgotten. Except that the president went on truth social and called the video seditious behavior, punishable by death. Say he wanted the lawmakers to be tried as traitors. Stephen Miller, who seems to run so many things in the White House these days, went on TV to declare. It is insurrection, plainly, directly, without question. It's a general call for rebellion saying that those who carry weapons in America's name should defy their chain of command and engage in open acts of insurrection.

So in other words, we ended up in one of those completely exhausting and very familiar standoffs between Republicans and Democrats, with the Democrats saying, we're just telling me, people to obey the law. And Republicans saying that Democrats, as always, are trying to overthrow Trump, this time with a military insurrection. And in the middle of all that are the two million people serving in the active military or National Guard or reserves right now. What are they thinking? Are many of them worried about getting illegal orders or getting legal orders that they're not comfortable with? We reached out to the handful of organizations that service people can call if they want confidential legal advice on that kind of thing.

None of them could put us in touch quickly with any of the service people they talked to, but they all did confirm that they've seen an upticking calls since the Trump administration came in. Most did not see more calls after the Democrats' video. And I want to emphasize the numbers of calls that they get are low compared to the immense size of the armed forces. GI Rights hotline has been getting a little over 200 calls a month on average since June. An organization called About Face only gets a few calls.

a week. Brittany Ramas de Barrows answers all those calls. She's an army vet served in Afghanistan. Lately, I think we've seen a lot of people who are in the National Guard saying orders are being circulated to support ice or to occupy an American city. I'm really concerned that I'm going to be forced to participate in one of these operations. And I don't believe that that's right. And I want to know what my options are. if I don't want to participate in that, right? People signed up thinking, I'm going to help rescue people from floods and, you know, help with the aftermath and cleanup of hurricanes.

I didn't sign up to go police American citizens. That's not what the military is for. The Pentagon wants to create these quick response forces, 500 National Guard in each state, to control civil unrest and riots. Have you heard about that? Yes. I spoke to someone last week who said that, their unit has had voluntary orders where they're asking people to volunteer to be part of these

QRFs and that they so far had been able to decline them. But they were calling because they were worried that it was going to not be optional soon because they weren't seeing a lot of people volunteer and that the sentiment within the units that they were in and connected to seemed to be that people thought this is bullshit. Like, I'm not going to be part of an anti-protest force in my own state. That's not what I signed up for the National Guard for. Earlier in the year, most of her calls were from the National Guard. Then that changed in June.

Then we saw the Marines be mobilized to L.A. And suddenly, I think a much larger swath of people in the active military were like, wait a minute, this is wild. And I might be implicated in this. need to know what my red lines are and what are my what are my choices and what are the consequences I'm willing to take on um we have more and more people with the escalations that we're seeing in the Caribbean um that are saying I am connected in some way to units that are carrying out these boat strikes or these uh you know preparations for attacks on Venezuela and things like that that are really gravely concerned.

Have you heard from people who've refused orders already? I have heard from people who said I got orders and I decided not to show up for them. What do I do now? And what were the orders? What kind of orders? This person I'm thinking of was active duty and so he just stopped showing up. He was supposed to be supporting the establishment of immigrant detention facilities and he went

what's called AWOL absent without leave and he just stopped showing up I think he kind of the way he described it he panicked because he it wasn't this drawn out process he was just like this is bad and I

don't know what to do and he didn't know he didn't have anyone to reach out to about it so he just stopped showing up right he panicked so we're you know we connected him with legal support since he already made that choice It's just a matter of helping him to navigate the legal consequences.

Because of her hotline's confidentiality rules, I should say we could not confirm this story or the others that she told us by talking to the service people involved. But we were able to verify many details. Brittany says she does not advise anybody on what they should do, but tells them what their options are. People can stay in their units and speak out publicly about things that they object to within certain limits. Even if they follow the rules, they could face all kinds of consequences. People who want out can file papers to be conscientious objectors, which can lead to wildly various outcomes.

They can be reassigned to other duties, or they can be discharged. Somebody refusing to obey orders can get you court-martialed. Of course, people can choose to do nothing. I've talked to active military members who were really upset about what's happening, but who said, my kids are in school, we're struggling to get by as it is. And unless I'm actively being asked to do something that I believe is wrong,

I can't afford to do anything about what I believe right now. Can you think of somebody like that and tell me about that conversation? Well, we've been doing a lot of outreach in D.C. to the National Guard members in D.C. And, you know, our members will go out and have conversations, conversations with people while they're patrolling, give them flyers that share that if they ever want to reach out for resources, they can. And when we initially started those conversations and that outreach, we had no idea how that was going to be received, kind of what the disposition of people was. And they were really willing to talk to us. And most of them said, yeah, I don't know why we're here. This is pointless. This is dumb. I'm away from my family. I'm losing pay even, right, in my regular job because of this.

And what we heard from many of them was, this is really good information. I believe my orders are legal currently. But if I ever am given an illegal order, I'll keep this in mind. It can be hard to figure out what to do sometimes. I was in Mexico, in Oaxaca, a couple weeks ago. And in this church, in Spanish, in one of the walls, it said, here are the remains of people like you and like me. people who knew how to act with faith and charity

in the historic moment and the circumstances that God decided to put them in. And I read that and I thought, am I doing the best I should be doing? In the historic moment that God decided to put me in? Today on our show, history comes knocking and a bunch of people have to figure out what to do. From WB.E.C. Chicago, this is American life tomorrow glass.

Stay with us. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and Cs apply. Everybody has a hot take on the economy, and whether you're curious about inflation, trade wars, or the markets, What you need is reporting you can trust. Hi, I'm Kai Risdahl, the host of Marketplace. Our award-winning reporters talk to everybody from CEOs to farmers

to help you understand how the economy takes shape in the real world. You'll be smarter every time you listen. And these days, that's priceless. Listen to Marketplace on your favorite podcast app. This is American Life, not one. Mother knows best. Thela Kuti, is it a special. level of fame where, yes, lots of people have no idea who he is. But for people who do,

there could not be a bigger musical star. He was a worldwide musical phenomenon by the 1980s, iconic from Nigeria. He ushered in an entire new genre of music, which he called Afrobeat. Phala is also a profoundly political figure. Nigeria was still a newly independent country in the 1970s and 80s, still very much trying to answer questions about what kind of nation it was going to be. Phala's songs criticize colonialism in all of its forms, openly challenged Nigeria's ruling military government. He took on apartheid South Africa in the United States.

Dale had called for the complete rejection of most things European and Western, and tried to live that way. Went so far as to found his own commune, and declared it to be its own republic, free of government control. His politics were radical, but also messy. His version of being an Africanist led him to pretty ugly views about gay people and women to make him a complicated person to explain. But recently, Chad Aberbrod, embarked on a journey to do just that. Jad is the creator and longtime co-host of Radio Lab,

and he did a big series on Dali Parton that won all kinds of awards and lots of people heard. Now he's put out a whole series about Fela. And a big chunk of it is about how Fala's music and his politics spoke to each other. And one of the stories that Jad tells, the story that we're going to excerpt here today,

is about where Fela's anti-colonial politics came from. Jad says that some of those beliefs can be traced back to his mother, Fulmalaio, Ransom Kuti. The story of her political accomplishments is not that well known outside of Nigeria. and it's kind of an amazing story on its own. What she did in her small town helped transform the entire country. Here's Chad with this story.

The story starts in the 1940s, Abiyakuta, Nigeria, a town that is about 50 miles north of Lagos. In Yoraba, Abiaquta means refuge under the rocks, because what you see at the center of town is this massive granite boulder. It's a really beautiful place. And the British felt that Abiyakuta was, their crown jewel, really proof that the colonial project was working. Everything in Abiyokuta was exactly as they wanted it.

And our main character, Fumulay and Ransom Kuti, Felau Kutti's mother, she was kind of part of that system, at least initially. She taught at a very Christian, very British prep school. Is this it, you think? That is still there today. Abia Kutja Grammar School. When we were, we, We visited, we saw hundreds of small kids in Christian prep uniforms, little boys in yellow shirts and ties, little girls in Czech skirts.

And everywhere we went, about 20 young people, ages 12 to about 15, stared at us. Very confused why we were there. Hello. Can I talk to you for a minute? Yes. Do you know Fumalaya Ransom Kuti? Yes. What do you know about her?

She's the first woman to do. She's the first woman to drive a car? Yes. This is something you hear a lot. And in fact, her car is on display at a museum in town. What did they teach you about her at the school? She's a teacher and a woman leader. She's a teacher and a woman leader.

Sir. Yes. She was the first woman to stop the pain of tax of women. To stop the pain of tax of women? Yes. Boom! That's the story we're going to tell on the radio. Yes, I need...

Okay, last question. Last question. Do you have an anthem for Abiyakuta Grammar School? Yeah. Can you sing it for us? Yes. Grace is a dell of Lenny. Have puttah Grammar to Nigeria.

First in Nepal and I know who states. Let her land here on deck to make our great. Cambodia of school, set our residents. The fear of God is our knowledge. I love to see I, shall we a tale, a feel, ever much ago. Okay, scene's that done. It's the 1940s.

Fumalaya Rensam Kuti and her husband are running the grammar school. If you see pictures of her from this era, she dresses in almost Victorian-style clothing. Puffy sleeves, buttons going down the front. She reminds you of the person you knew at school who is president of all the club. Colonialism had basically created this whole new class of Nigerian elite who worked with the British. And she was basically that, at least at first.

The first organization that she creates is actually an organization to teach Christian girls how to be good wives. This is historian Judith Byfield. She showed me photocopies of handwritten notes from Fulmalaeransom Kuti's archives. Minutes of the Abi Akuta Ladies Club. It's called the Abiyakuta Ladies Club. Are these the actual minutes from 1945? Yeah. And actually, I have a couple more for envelopes.

Make yourself comfortable. They were planning picnics. Picnic at 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the 31st. God, we have a whole, like, dance program here. They were planning dances. Fox Trot. Hoki, Koki. Wow. They were planning cookery classes.

They were talking about how to recruit. It was again suggested that more ladies should be asked to join the club. For the next set of girls. That's her handwriting right there. Wow. Very loopy, precise cursive. F. Ransom Kuti president. It's a weird thing when you see someone's handwriting. Oh, yeah.

They're there suddenly. And it turns out reading and writing would become one of the things, one of the catalytic agents that would take Fumelaya from cooking classes to coup blotting. Um, so... This is his... historian Cheryl Johnson-Odom, she says it started one day in church. She said she was in church one time, and there was a market woman friend of hers who was singing. But holding the hymnal upside down.

And she said, that was then she realized she couldn't read. That, you know, she just learned the words. So she said the market women, because of the little group she had, started coming to her. We can imagine after the service, Fumelaya, told her. the woman, hey, I have this club. Why don't you come? We'll teach you. How to read. This woman was not the kind of person who would have typically gone to the ladies' club. So the ladies' club were all these elite Christian women.

She worked in the markets. Very different class. We might guess that she sold dyed cloth. A tie-dyer. Judith says that was a major industry in Abu Ghouta. The market woman would use indigo dye to create these very particular undulating patterns that look like water. Pretty soon, all of the cloth dyers and the rice cellars and the red pepper sellers and the potato sellers were all coming to Fumelaya's Ladies Club for reading lessons. In fact, Wally Shienka, he's written about how he would sometimes be at her compound.

Women of every occupation, the cloth dyes, weavers, basket makers, they arrived in ones, twos, groups. They came from mere and distant compound. They smelled of the sweat of the journey, of dyes, dried fish, yam flour. In addition to the head tie, their shoulder shores neatly folded were placed lightly on their heads. Well, you saw the swirling colors and the women's sashes. That's Nobel Prize winning writer Wolle Shoyenka, who is actually fellow Kuti's cousin. He spent a lot of time around Fulai Ransom Kuti and has written about her extensively. You saw the movement of the clothing, which meant get out of my way.

talked about them being the rapper wearers. He said when the rapper wearers showed up, boy, something was going down. And so the ladies' club then sets up this literacy program. And Fela is involved. Fela apparently would sit with the cloth makers and the peanut sellers, and he would teach them how to write their letters. Wole Shoyenka is involved. They're all helping to teach the market women to write.

But as I confessed, I was a great eavesdropper as a child. Wolloshenka said that inevitably after their reading and writing lessons, the talk would turn to politics and the kids would have to leave the room. But he, and we might imagine fell out next to him, they would crouch down and listen just out of sight. And when they did, he says they would hear the same words coming up over and over. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. And also. The alake. The alake of Abeokuta was a formidable personality in his own. own right. This person, the alake, is going to come up a lot. So let me explain the situation and who he was. Nigeria was a British colony, which we know. But colonialism took many forms,

unlike, say, South Africa. The Brits in Nigeria didn't have many white people on the ground. Instead, what they did was they ruled Nigeria through surrogates, like the alake. The alake, which is the king of this town. Technically, the alakee was a king. And he definitely looks like it. In one photo of him, he's decked out in flowing robes with gold detailing, big crown studded with jewels, and someone is always holding a fringed umbrella over his head. But if you look to the side of the picture, you see a white guy with a mustache and a shiny top hat. In most photos of the alake, there is a guy like that standing right at the edge of the picture.

Basically, the alake is being told what to do by the British. He's being held in power by the British. and the decision-making is the British, even if it comes out of the Ialaka's mouth. This was the basis of indirect rule. That was what the British said was so important about their system that they left those indigenous political leaders

or titles, at least, in place. This is why the British loved Abiyakuta so much because it was the perfect case study for their classic move. British government did this all over Asia in what is now Singapore, India, Bangladesh, and of course Africa. They would go in, take control,

of the leaders, and then use a local man dressed ostentatiously to execute their plans. Okay, so full confession, I'm not really supposed to be recording in here. This is his diary from 1912 to 1915. A producer, Ruby Walsh, found a diary of one colonial officer who put it pretty plainly. The titular ruler is the Alake, who knows no English and started life as a canoe boy. However, the British commissioner, Mr. Young, is of course the dominating factor. The little state is somewhat in the position. of a would-be independent, but really very dependent child.

Getting back to the story, the market women coming to those literacy meetings were pissed because around 1938, the British colonial officers, those men in suits at the margins of the photos, they went to the Alakei and told him, we need you to tax the women in the market. Because at that time, Germany has invaded Poland and has bombed many times. World War II was about to happen. Hitler was rampaging his way through Europe. General mobilization has been ordered in Britain and France.

And this is something that no one teaches you in history class, but a lot of the manpower for the war effort came from European colonies in Africa. The people of Africa are doing excellent work to help the Allied corps, both by the production of raw materials and by finding men for the armed forces. You saw the soldiers being moved across Habakkuktu in lorries, and they were going to fight some nasty man called Adolf Hitler.

The vague ogre overseas, who in some way or they are there, was involved in our local politics on the wrong side. This was happening all over Africa. You had the Nigeria Regiment. You had stations on the shore of Sierra Leone. You had the Gold Coast Regiment. And so the British government now had this problem. They're trying just to make sure they get enough rice to feed the soldiers.

And so there are all these conversations about how can we, in a sense, put more of a squeeze on the population. It's a really combustible situation for these market women. What the British decided to do was create a contingent of tax collectors. These were native tax collectors, so non-white. But like the Alake, they were directed by the British colonial officers. Oh, they were hated. They were hated. They were considered the slaves of white district officers. The tax collectors would march in to the markets,

demand that the market sellers unload all their potatoes and their rice for a third of what they were asking. And if you don't sell to me, I'll actually just confiscate it and you get nothing. So during the war, they have no control over the prices. On top of that, the tax collectors would levy all these new fines on the women. Not only tax them, but make sure they pay. So at those literacy meetings, the market woman would tell Fulamalia these stories about how they were being harassed,

how they would try to sell at night to avoid the tax collectors but often get caught. Taken to court and tried and sometimes get hard labor. They were putting them in jail. At one point, they started jailing them outside of Fabia Kuta so that their families couldn't see them. Wolle Shoyenka writes about one literacy meeting where an old woman got up to speak. She was so old that she had to be assisted up. The meeting was her first, and she had dragged her feeble body to the assembly as a last hope for the menace now hanging over her head. She tells her story.

A son died and left 13 children behind, so she took over the farm to provide for them. Then tax officers came to her and said, because she has a large farm, she gets a safe. special assessment, asking for far more money than she has ever had. You know, one of the things that the colonial enterprise did was it made assumptions about the way society was organized and structured. It made assumptions about women. For instance, it went into the marketplace and it started telling women where they could locate their markets.

Well, nobody told women where they could locate their markets, not even African men, because there was a really different status between the public status of women and the private status of women. And private women were, I'd say generally, oppressed by indigenous patriarchy. In public, there was like a whole different thing. I mean, I saw a woman, I don't tell this story often, who was telling everybody what to do in the market. You know, blah, blah, blah, men too. But I went to her house one time, and she was serving her husband on her niece.

And I'm like, this can't be you. This cannot be you. and so the cloning enterprise began interfering with what had been the traditional rights of women where to decide where a market went, how much to charge for something. And so the women began to get very agitated. All of which is to say that as the meetings went on,

the nature of the relationship between Fulmalaire and some Quti and these market women began to shift. At first it was just reading lessons, but then the market woman began to approach her and ask her if she would write letters for them, letters to the alake, to the British colonial officials.

Wow. So where we are right now used to be her study. From Elias study. We took a tour of her house, a small two-story house with a balcony overlooking a busy street,

and our tour guide. My name is Akin Labi. I'm the manager at the Couti Heritage Museum. She showed us her home office, a spare room, tiny rug, chair. These are our original furniture that we had to refurbish. Is that an original turntable?

Oh, yeah, it is. Wow. What would she? She probably listened to hymns, would you guess? Yeah. There was an old wooden desk facing out the window, and it was very easy to imagine

her sitting there, typing, just rifling off the hundreds of letters found in her archives. The Egba women's suffering is becoming unbearable. Egba women have been summoned, worried, harangued, and ill-treated by tax collectors.

They said the suit they were given would not be eaten by dogs. They have to spread their blankets out to sleep on. Young girls are sometimes, stripped naked in the streets by the men, officially designated collectors in order to ascertain whether they are mature enough to pay tax or not.

A woman was jailed with a nine-day-old baby after she had paid her tax to the tax collector. Back with Judith. So this is a letter to Fumulair ransom Kuti from, I guess, an officer. In one exchange about that jailed woman, an officer replied, my dear Mrs. Cootie, what does it matter if a woman is jailed with a day old baby?

What we want to know is that she pays her tax. Wow. So they were taking these stories to Ransom Cootie. And then Ransom Cootie would try to talk to their lackey on their behalf. He would basically say, there's nothing I can do. He'd say you have to talk to the British. This is their policy. And she was like, we have exhausted all these.

channels. We go to the colonial officials. They tell us it's their lackey. They go to him and he says, it's not me. It's the colonial officials who you have to talk to. They had had it. They're like, this runaround has to stop. Wolle-Shanka remembers the moment when the vibe irrevocably shifted. It happened at the grammar school. A tumult overspilled the courtyard. Marketwoman had come from all over. There was no question of my going on that night. I sensed the beginning of an unusual event and was gripped by the excitement. The women's group met till late.

I had long fallen asleep on the bench in the dining room and woke up the following morning in the bed in the dormitory of Mrs. Couti's class. On the following morning at breakfast, I heard for the first time the expression, Abe Okota Women's Union. The Aveakuta Women's Union. Wow, this is a...

At this point in the archives, you see a switch flip. No more ladies' club. This is a union and no more Western clothes. From this point forward, she would dress in the same wraps and headscarves as the market women. She started only wearing Nigerian clothing. She never wore Western clothing again. Okay, this is Constitution, Rules, and Regulations, aims and objectives of the unions. To establish and maintain unity and cooperation among all women in Egba Land.

Egmaland, by the way, is a reference to one of the dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria. To cooperate with all organizations seeking and fighting genuinely and selflessly for the economic and political freedom and independence of the people. Dang. Number five, to raise and maintain necessary and adequate. It's like, I read this stuff and I'm like, we got to get our shit together. These people were organized. And, you know, she had a car. So she used to drive to different communities and hold meetings with them. And we know, because Phala told it to his biographer, Carlos Moore, that when she got in a car to go to a meeting, she would often take him with her.

So she and her husband owned this school, and so the school had huge grounds. And that's where the rapper wearers would meet. While we were at the school, I kept looking into the field behind where the kids were doing the Bible study. I mean, it wasn't the same field, but I kept trying to imagine what it would have looked like filled with thousands of. of women. You know, there were, the estimates are between 10 and 20,000 members. According to Wolleshanka, the first protest happened almost spontaneously. They poured out of the grammar school compound, filled the streets, and marched towards

the palace of the Alakei. It was a bust. The authorities quickly shut it down and jailed Fumalayao, saying she didn't have a permit to march. When she was released, she thought, okay, fine, if you're not going to let us have a protest. They said they were going to have a picnic. And so they got to 10 pounds of women to go have a picnic, you know, when they were carrying little packets of food.

A week before, Fumelaya had held a massive meeting in her courtyard. And she said it at her compound, and she came out, and she said to them, and she said she was screaming because there were so many there. Because she started talking, they were like at the back in, hear you. So she was screaming through her hands. And she was saying, look, this is the time. I'm going to turn my back to you, and anybody who wants to can scurry away. I won't know who you are.

I won't see you. But when I turn back around, everybody I see better be on board. And so she turned her back. And according to everybody, nobody left. Oh, my God. And then as Wolloshenka describes that all at once, all 10,000 women took off their headwraps. It is always a dramatic moment. Normally, there's a head tie nestling peacefully on the head.

The moment there's going to be conflict, off would come the head tie to the waist. They would tie it around their waist like a belt. It's like throwing down the gauntlet. When a woman takes off her head tie, ties it like a sash around her waist, men scatter. Oh, my God, you can see her addressing the crowd. What? Wow, you can see the crowd. After three and a half hours of digging through the archives that Judith Byfield had laid out for me, I found these black and white pictures.

There's literally like 10,000 people, 10,000 heads. In one picture, shot from above, you see thousands of heads covered in white scarves, white circles filling every millimeter of the picture. And to the side, on a platform, one woman addresses them. And next to her, maybe a young boy, probably I'm just imagining it. I'm getting a little too excited. Oh, my God, these pictures. This rally is perhaps the moment right before they march to the Ilocke's palace, which is when things really go down.

My sense of it is you would see this sea of women approaching the palace. What you would see is you would see men getting out of the way. And they would often tell the British, the British would come to them and say, get these women to stop it. And they would say, we don't tell them like your women what to do. We cannot stop it. And there's a wonderful passage in Akeh, where Sharyinka talks about one of the chiefs running into his mother's shop and hide in there because the women had stripped him off his clothes and just reduced him to his underwear. Speaking of Woli Shiaenka, he snuck ahead of the women to the palace, which we visited.

Picture a gated mansion painted canary yellow. He snaked through the gate under the stone archway and into the spacious square. Okay, we're in the... This must have been the courtyard where they were. It's a big open space with peacocks milling about. As you walk into the courtyard, you see a building in front of you, yellow building. There's an image of him talking, them talking to the Alake. The Alakee coming down from a balcony.

That might have been the balcony. That's probably the balcony. Up high, there was a single balcony with glass doors, the Alakey's bedroom. He initially stayed inside. as the women flooded the courtyard. So they were probably right here. You just see a sea of white head scars. At first, some of the Alakei's junior chiefs come outside,

try and hold the women back to keep them from entering. They comply, but only in exchange for a conversation with the Alakei. So the juniors go inside. Then the glass doors on that balcony opened, and the Alakei stepped out, dressed in his gold robes. When the Alake appeared, they cut seed, going down on their knees, but no more. The alake had obviously resolved to receive the emissaries courteously.

A protester, one of Mrs. Coutis's lieutenants, stepped forward and called up to the alake. The message which I bring you today is the message of all women who have left their stalls, their homes and children, their farms and petty affairs to come and visit you today. They are the suffering crowd who are gathered on your front lawn. You can see them yourself, Kabilisi. They are all the womanhood of Egwa. The voice with which I speak is the voice of our bearer Mrs. Couty. The words which you hear from me are the words of Mrs. Coty.

She asked me to tell you on behalf of those women you see outside that the women of Eba have had enough. In hindsight, it was rather like protagonists and the chorus. Wolle Oshanka describes the scene almost like it had a kind of mythic choreography. You have a massed women. You had the moment when the white district office. A policeman, he came in through the gates and was booed round lane. A policeman ordered a district officer to clear his way through the crowd towards Mrs. Couty.

As he moved through, the women threw insults at him from all directions, getting in his face. Mrs. Couty stayed rooted. Officer, look here, Mrs. Couty. We are trying to hold a serious meeting here. Would you kindly keep your women in order? Miss Couty, so are we holding a serious meeting, or do you think we're here to play? Officer, we'll tell them. to shut up. Shut up your women.

Mrs. Couti apparently squinted her eyes. I think her exact words were you may have been born, but you were not bred. Those words would fly around Abiyakutu for weeks. That's the one which then became translated that you lack bread in your house

and all kinds of other versions. Anyway, she gave it to him back with interest. And it was at that point that the women began to sing. This is a lot of one o' This is one of the most interesting parts of the story to me. Oh, look at this.

Yeah, this. All songs, sun during the women's union demonstrations from Fort. Oh, hello. Oh, this is what? In the archives that Judith showed me, Fumalaya has documented all of the songs, protest songs, that the women sang when they occupied the palace.

There's two hundred different songs they were singing. Every protest movement is defined by its. music to some degree. And there are pages and pages of these songs in the archives. All the songs are in Yoraba. So we hired a language expert to help us translate them and then a choir in Legos to sing them. And these songs are wild. Because they would sing insulting songs. And a quick warning, they get kind of graphic. They would say things like, Olegé, OLE, you know, white man is not going to get back to his country live.

You're going to cut off the Alake's head. Elake's genitals are small. I mean, all these are just mean, you know, things to just insult. My favorite, by far. The chorus that we got to sing these songs were gasping when they read the lyrics. English translation. Alake is as a penis is as big as a horse. The alake has a penis as big as a horse, however.

We will cut it off, basically. We will cut it off, basically. The literal translation is, as best as we can tell, we will emit fire from our vaginas that will wound his penis. You can't translate them. This is one of the reasons why the protest movement became known as vengeance of the vagina head. There is an African tradition called

Sitting on a man. Sitting on a man means gathering outside of a man's house and singing insulting derisive songs and daring him to come out. And men were scared to death of it. Now, no one woman could talk to a husband like that. So, like, if a man beat a woman, she might run to her market women's group, and then they would descend in the hundreds on her house,

telling her husband, if you ever beat her again, they were going to deal with them. Wow. So they would start singing those songs, so you like it. Yeah, they weren't mincing their words. And then they would say, and we're not leaving either. Coming up after the break, the women make the British experience something they have absolutely no answer for. That's in a minute for Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. It's just American life. I'm Ira Glass.

Today's program, bigger than me, stories of people trying to rise to the historic moment that they find themselves in. If you're just tuning in, we're in the middle of an excerpt from Chad Abramrod's new podcast about Fela Kuti. This particular story is about Fela's mother, Fun Malaya Ransom Kuti. Chad picks up where he left off. The women are trying to convince the Alakei to stop. taxing them unfairly. The market women camped out in the courtyard of the Alakez Palace, and then they began round-the-clock shifts.

Wolloshenka remembers that those encampments became like a city. There were moments of absolute stillness. For instance, when they started cooking, because they laid siege. They were there all night. And they took turns, sometimes go home, look after the children, come back to their position. So there was cooking also. And the activity, especially at night, when they lit their lamps, oil lamps, to stay on the siege. At some point, you described yourself as a courier.

Yes, it's true. I was a courier. Since I was so small, and there were police, lots of police around, and they like his own guards. Since I was so tiny, people didn't take much notice of me. And so Mrs. Couty, in particular. He says she would entrust him with these notes. Little notes to her forces who were scattered in front of the palace. These protests happened on and off as the year went on. I mean, they literally made the town ungovernable. They shut down the market, and they stayed camped out just outside the Alake's window. The sea of women is in the palace, and he can't get out.

After several months of this, he starts to crack. Yes, yes. And is he amassing soldiers to try and drive away? edge through the protesters? So that's a really interesting story. I learned from the memoir of the main colonial officials that they did have soldiers on the edge of town. And they were contemplating bringing the soldiers into town.

In fact, the Lackey was trying to beg him to bring the soldiers in. This is not theoretical. Almost 20 years earlier, in a different part of Nigeria, there had been a different revolt, also led by women. Also a struggle around taxation. And in the 29 protests, they did call out the army and women were killed. Army opened fire on a crowd and killed over 50 women. A few years before that, in 1918, a similar rebellion,

ended up with 600 people dead. Vela would actually sing a song about this. He would adapt a folk song that was used in the protest and set it to music. But that's many years later. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. At that moment, if anything, Phila is in the encampment with his mom as the tension mounted because it looked like this protest with the market woman was going to end the same way as the others. because what Diyalake was saying essentially to his British masters was

what you did last time, do it again, please. They were very conscious of that earlier era. And so in 47 now, they have the army closed, basically on the edge of town. The market women are camped out, well aware of the violence that might be about to go down. But both Judas and Cheryl say that somewhere around this point in this, the standoff. The women begin to protest in an entirely new way. A few of them step forward. And they take their clothes off. They actually stripped naked. Apparently, right there in the plaza, some number of women, we don't have accurate details on how many, maybe a dozen, maybe a hundred.

They got together and while facing the Alake's window all at once, they disrobed. And the idea is that if you see an older woman naked, that that's an abomination. Judith explained that in many West African cultures, and in fact in many other cultures around the world, women disrobing, particularly older women, was thought of as a kind of weapon, a summoning of a spiritual power. Partly because of their ability to procreate, women are thought to be in touch. with the spiritual powers around them and thought to be able to really sort of weaponize that. That when they disrobed, any man who looked on them was now a target.

I find this moment so interesting. You have these women, shoulder to shoulder, putting out a kind of spiritual power, almost like a force field. and then just outside of town, you have an army. It's like two different epistemologies in a way of power. Yes, yes. You have military power, and then you have this no less potent symbolic power.

Yeah. And they're lined up against each other. Exactly. And so they have the army closed, basically on the edge of town. And Judah says, if you read the correspondence that was flying back and forth between the Alake and the generals and between the various British officers, They were like, fuck, what do we do with this? We could march in, kill them all, as we've done before.

But they're saying, do we want to create martyrs? The British understood on some level that women hold the culture of a place. They are traditionally the child rewurers, the relationship tenders. So if you attack them... If they go in and attack these women, that might unleash an energy that they can't contain. That could then bring young men and the ones you usually fear out into the streets as well. Don't forget the British were outnumbered.

They didn't actually have a lot of soldiers on the ground. And so on one hand, the state is a little hamstrung about how you deal with women. I think in general, it's fair to say that a lot of politics is driven by the fact that men are afraid of women. In this case, the British definitely were. We lived in a constant strain, for we never knew when the pot would boil over. That is how John Blair,

the main colonial officer stationed in Abu Quta, put it in his diary. When the tension was at its worst, I got quite ill, and the doctor sent me to hospital in Lagos. I was sure I was suffering from nervous exhaustion. On July 29, 1948, in the dead of night,

as protesters were camped all around the palace. The British sent a car to the palace to take the alake, his wives and his family, away. They snuck him out of town. He didn't want to leave. They snuck him past all the people? Yeah. They put him in a car. So one of the colonial officials I interviewed had been involved with getting him out of town. And he said they put him in the car and had him lie down on the back seat. So they were sneaking him out without the women being aware that he was leaving town. Wow. He went into exile.

Okay, so this is a speech that the Alake made a few months after they took him away. After more than a half century of service to my country, 28 of which I have given in the capacity of native authority, I cannot bear any longer the sight of turmoil, strife, and discontent. I have therefore decided after my chore consideration and in order to avoid bloodshed to leave the environment of my territory in the hope that after a time, frayed tempers will subside, and an atmosphere of calm will prevail.

Wow. Quite a speech. In other words, he abdicated the throne. That was huge. No other woman has ever credited with unseating, a sitting with Trimmy. Drumming began in the Ulubami Houses at 5pm on August 21, 1948, followed by firing of guns by hunters and danced by all at Alakeh Square. Fifty different forms of African dances were in attendance. They were dancing at the dawn of a new day.

They talked about Apiakuta being liberated, and they have this Thanksgiving ceremony. There's this minister who speaks on behalf of the women. He said it took the women to do what the men couldn't do for 28 years. And in the archives, what you see from this point forward are hundreds of letters from other women. She had letters in her paper from women all over the continent saying, Mother, you have so inspired us. 1948, dear Mrs. Couti, I am penning you this day under the respect to I owe to women. Women from unions all over start to reach out.

We, the Alawa-Aribe Women's Union, send this letter to ask for your assistance. Copycat women's unions start to appear everywhere. South Africa, the anti-apartheid movement, Ghana. Arab Women's Society, Union of Albanian women, Union of Australian women, Union of Korean women. So you can look everywhere. Democratic League of Finnish women. Democrat Union of German women. Federation of Cuban women.

League for Lebanese women rights. Woo! You know Luxembourg women. And I'm only at DMs. And you see women everywhere. We in the West tend to emphasize the legacies of Africa's male leaders. The Kwame and Krumas, the Nelson Mandela's. But if you look across the continent from this point forward, you see women leading revolts in Senegal, Cameroon, South Africa, Gold Coast, Algeria, Kenya, Mozambia.

Ivory Coast, Togo, Mali, Somalia, Egypt. It's a story we've largely missed. And the erasure of it all kind of landed on us when we went off in search of Fumalaia Ransom Kuti's grave. Aki, our tour guide from earlier, pointed us toward the Anglican church that was 300 feet from the house. Yes, hi. We were told that Fumalaia Ransom Kuti is buried in this church, or we're not sure which

church? We went there, asked around. The guy walked us to the back side of the church. This is... This one. The father's mother is there. Father's mother is there. Here we are.

There was a grave set in concrete. Mrs. Kuti is buried with her husband. There's a headstone and then above the headstone is a bust of Reverend Kuti. And there on the tombstone is his bust. and on the epitaph. Reverend Israel, Odun Ransam Kuti. All the details of his life. President Nigerian Union of Teachers Association, 1930s, 1954.

He was a very impressive man. Did a lot to revolutionize the educational system in Nigeria. But his wife, who is buried with him, and who led a revolt to depose the king, she's hardly mentioned. That's crazy, they don't say anything about her. Barely a word. All there is is this one line that says,

RIP, my love. Fumalaya. Are you surprised? I was expecting her to have a thing. Me too. Yeah, that says a lot. Even people who do remember her, says Judith, tend to think of her as a footnote in Phila's story

rather than the hero of her own. So appreciate that you're doing this, though, because that's the thing that drove me crazy. She became reduced to Phela's mother. And so even when I would give talks in Nigeria, people would be surprised at all the stuff that I bring out because her activism has just really been forgotten. Falakuti himself would eventually take up positions about the role of women in society that were very controversial and in many ways flew in the face of what his mother was fighting for. and yet he did honor her. He referred to her as the mother of Nigeria.

And in 1978, when she died, after the government raided his compound and literally threw her out of a window, he records a song called Unknown Soldier where he sings about the incident and you can hear his voice break. Political, mama, influential. so my mama out of from window

them kill my mama them kill my mama them kill my mama them kill my mama them kill my mama them carry everybody go home so he never forgot

what she'd accomplished and neither did those market women who marched with her So let me tell you, my grandmother. This is Yeni Kutti, Felaar's oldest daughter, Fumulani Ransom Kuti's granddaughter. My grandmother, when we were burying her, we went in a convoy to Abekuta. A Bekota is her town. When we got to the border of Abakuta, there was this mammoth crowd of women.

Mammoth crowd of women. We had to stop. They took her body from us and they walked with her and they honored her as the voice of the women. It was a people's funeral. It was a people's funeral. It's called Failure Couti, if you're no man, you can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Nigeria

Well, today's program was produced by Valerie Kittness and Emmanuel Jochi. The people who help put the show together today include Michael Comite,

Susan Gabbar, Sophie Gill, Cassie Halle, Seth Flynn, Stone Nelson, Catherine Raymondo, Nadia Raymond, Elisa Shipp, Christopher Sotala

and Marisa Robertson Texter. Our managing editor, Sarah Abduraman, our senior editors, David Kastenbaum, our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry.

Judd's collaborators in making his Phelis series were Ian Wheeler, Engo Fan Mutuplele, Ruby Heron Walsh, Féééodududu, and Olo

Wakimi Ula do Soi, the series was edited by Benadir. Special thanks as well to Vitek, Hun Mia Rewa, Debbie O'Hiri, who put together the choir singing protest songs throughout this episode. At Iran K helped translate those songs. The episode was fact-checked by Robin Reed and Jamila Wilkinson. Just a quick reminder that if you like our show

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