West African Youth League

The West African Youth League (WAYL) was a political organisation founded by I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson in June 1935.[1] The group was a major political force against the colonial government in West Africa, especially in the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone. The League was the first political movement in the region "to recruit women into the main membership and the decision-making bodies of the organisation".[2]

In 1938 the popularity of the League increased in Sierra Leone as Wallace-Johnson returned.[3] The league contested and won the Freetown City Council elections in the same year. At the time Wallace-Johnson claimed that the organisation had a membership of 40 000. Following the Freetown election victory, the British authorities arrested Wallace-Johnson.[4] The league went into disarray after Wallace-Johnson was sent to prison on Sherbro Island in 1939. After attempting to revive the organisation in 1944, Wallace-Johnson took it into the Pan-African Federation set up in Manchester, United Kingdom. He decided to merge it into the National Council of Sierra Leone in 1950.

Mary Lokko served as Wallace-Johnson's assistant for a time beginning in 1936, becoming likely the first woman in West Africa to hold a position in a political organization.[5]

Notes

1. Spitzer & Denzer 1973a, p. 432.
2. Murray Last, Paul Richards; Christopher Fyfe (eds), Sierra Leone, 1787-1987: Two Centuries of Intellectual Life (special edition of Africa, journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 57, No. 4), Manchester University Press, 1987, p. 443.
3. Sierra Leone - History and Politics
4. AfricaNews - Wallace Johnson's legacy still thrives - Chernoh
5. Kathleen E. Sheldon (2005). Historical Dictionary of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5331-7.

References

• Adi, Hakim; Sherwood, Marika (2003), Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora Since 1787, New York: Routledge, ISBN 0-415-17352-3, OCLC 50243646.
• Cartwright, John R. (1970), Politics in Sierra Leone, 1947-67, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-1687-1, OCLC 1992688.
• Denzer, LaRay (June–September 1982), "Wallace-Johnson and the Sierra Leone Labor Crisis of 1939", African Studies Review, African Studies Review, Vol. 25, No. 2/3, 25 (2/3): 159–183, doi:10.2307/524215, ISSN 0002-0206, JSTOR 524215.
• Hooker, James (1967), Black Revolutionary: George Padmore's Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism, New York: Praeger Publishers, OCLC 1992688.
• Kilson, Martin (1966), Political Change in a West African State: A Study of the Modernization Process in Sierra Leone, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-8020-1687-1, OCLC 413935.
• Spitzer, Leo; Denzer, LaRay (1973a), "I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League", The International Journal of African Historical Studies, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, 6 (3): 413–452, doi:10.2307/216610, ISSN 0361-7882, JSTOR 216610.
• Spitzer, Leo; Denzer, LaRay (1973b), "I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League. Part II: The Sierra Leone Period, 1938-1945", The International Journal of African Historical Studies, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4, 6 (4): 565–601, doi:10.2307/217222, ISSN 0361-7882, JSTOR 217222.