Ladipo Solanke
*The birth of Ladipo Solanke is celebrated on this date in 1886. He was a Black African political activist.
Ladipo Solanke was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, as Oladipo Felix Solanke. He studied at the Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone before moving to study law at University College, London, in 1922. In Britain, Solanke joined the Union of Students of African Descent. In 1924, he wrote to West Africa Magazine to complain about an article in the Evening News, which had claimed that cannibalism and black magic had been common in Nigeria until recent years.
His protest received the support of Amy Ashwood Garvey, who became a close friend, while Solanke began studying British papers for other derogatory reports. Solanke began teaching Yoruba and was exasperated by the lack of interest in traditional Nigerian culture among other Nigerian students in London. In June 1924, he became the first person to broadcast in Yoruba on the radio. The following month, with Garvey's encouragement, Solanke and twelve other students founded the Nigeria Progress Union to promote the welfare of Nigerian students.
In 1925, Solanke and Herbert Bankole-Bright founded the West African Students' Union (WASU) as a social, cultural, and political focus for West African students in Britain. He became the organization’s Secretary-General and the primary contributor to its journal, Wasu. In 1926, he recorded music in Yoruba for Zonophone, and in 1927, he published United West Africa at the Bar of the Family of Nations, calling for Africans to enjoy universal suffrage. Solanke also led WASU's drive for a hostel for West Africans in London. In 1929, he left for a fundraising tour of West Africa. He spent three years travelling, his mission was supported by the West Africans and followed by most of the local press.
While there, branches of WASU were founded in each country he visited. He also met Opeolu Obisanya, and the couple later married. Solanke returned to Britain with sufficient funds to open the planned hostel, named "Africa House", and became its first warden. However, he faced severe criticism from some WASU members over alleged extravagant spending while in Africa. During the 1930s and 1940s, Solanke leveraged his friendships with figures such as Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Reginald Sorensen, and Nathaniel Fadipe to advance the causes of West African unity and anti-racism, thereby elevating the profile of WASU.
When cocoa farmers in the Gold Coast attempted to break a cartel of British companies, they wrote to Solanke personally to seek his assistance, and he was able to organize an extensive campaign in Britain, including raising questions in Parliament. In 1944, Solanke returned to West Africa to raise funds for a new hostel and did not return to Britain until 1948. The trip again proved a success, but in his absence, WASU had increasingly come under the influence of Kwame Nkrumah and then Joe Appiah. Faced with internal dissent, Solanke stepped down as Secretary-General in 1949 to campaign against communist influence in the union. His efforts to organize a slate of anti-communist candidates to contest the elections to the WASU executive in 1951 proved unsuccessful.
In January 1953, he finally split with the union after it decided to close Africa House, due to financial pressures. Solanke maintained the hostel with his own dwindling funds until his death from lung cancer in London on September 2, 1958.
