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Sixty years ago on 10 May 1965 Isaac T. A. Wallace-Johnson died in a car accident in Ghana. Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Wallace-Johnson dedicated his life to the fight for freedom from colonial rule, and better conditions for African people, not just in his native Sierra Leone, but everywhere he lived and visited.
Wallace-Johnson was an organiser of people. He was a rebel with a cause. Always. In Nigeria he organised the Nigerian Workers Union but was deported shortly after in 1933.
In 1934 in Ghana (then the Gold Coast) he was a founding member of another trade union, the Gold Coast Motor Drivers Union, and a youth organisation, the West African Youth League (WAYL ). Pobee Biney, the trade unionist (another individual we should know more about) was a member of the WAYL.
Wallace-Johnson was also a journalist and consistently wrote articles for newspapers and journals he either founded or worked on with others.
In 1936, along with Nnamdi Azikiwe he was tried and convicted for sedition for an article he wrote titled Has the African a God?
Wallace-Johnson later resettled in Sierra Leone where he set up a branch of the WAYL. He was thought so dangerous by the British colonialists he was arrested and imprisoned when Britain declared war against Germany in September 1939. He was not released until 1944.
Upon his release Wallace-Johnson once again took up political agitation. He was an active participant in the 5th Pan African Congress which took place in Manchester, Britain in October 1945 (another anniversary to be remembered this year).
There is so much more that can be said about Wallace-Johnson, but I’ll leave it here for now, except to say that he was an ordinary African, with an extraordinary commitment to organising ordinary Africans towards Moving Africa Forward. Let us seek to emulate and build on those aspects of his thought and practice that can help us in Moving Africa Forward. (AFP)
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