Constance Agatha Cummings-John
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The author Chibundu Onuzo nominates the first elected female in Africa, Constance Agatha Cummings-John.
Chibundu discovered the remarkable story of Constance while studying for her PhD. Born into the Sierra Leonean Krios elite in 1918, Constance was brought up in colonial Freetown, with a lifestyle which most resembled English gentility.
But everything changed for her when she travelled to England and America as a teenager. She experienced racism and segregation for the first time, and returned to Sierra Leone determined to fight the colonial rule of the British.
At just 20 years old she became the first female elected councillor in Africa, and later the mayor of Freetown. But following independence, she would find herself in exile in London.
Matthew Parris is joined by Chibundu and Constance's grandson, Dennis Cummings-John, to discuss prejudice, class and colonialism, through the inspirational story of a woman ahead of her time.
Producer: Polly Weston
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2019.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | The year was 1936. |
| 0:08.4 | A well-spoken, coursited young lady |
| 0:10.9 | was looking for a place to eat in Alabama. She was wealthy, she had the air of English |
| 0:16.6 | gentility, and she was parched by thirst and faint with hunger, but no one would serve her. This was her first experience in America |
| 0:26.6 | and her first experience of segregation, and it transformed her, turning her towards politics. Just a couple of years later at the age of 20, |
| 0:36.8 | she'd become the first female elected councillor in Africa, and later the first black female mayor of any city on the continent. |
| 0:46.0 | Her name was Constance Agatha Cummings John. |
| 0:50.6 | Constance is the choice of my guest today, Chibundu Onuzu novelist and historian. |
| 0:56.5 | Also pretty pioneering in her youth, Chibundu was the youngest woman ever signed to Faber |
| 1:02.0 | with her debut novel The Spider King's daughter when she was just |
| 1:05.9 | 19. |
| 1:06.9 | Tubundu why Constance? |
| 1:08.9 | Well I came across her when I was doing my PhD and it pretty much centered on men. I was looking at |
| 1:14.8 | West African students in England in the 1920s 30s and falsies and then a friend of mine |
| 1:21.7 | asked me well what about the woman and then I thought, a friend of mine asked me, well, what about the woman? |
| 1:23.0 | And then I thought, yeah, what about the woman? |
| 1:26.0 | And then I came across this book about Constance, |
| 1:29.0 | and I read her autobiography, and it was just surreal that I hadn't heard about this woman that existed and she was |
| 1:38.0 | active in politics from the 1930s and she had this very privileged background and there were pictures of her dressed like an |
| 1:46.5 | Austin hearing like it was just bizarre that I just never come across her. |
| 1:51.0 | I hadn't come across her across her I come from Africa |
... |
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