Constance Cummings-John

Who is Constance Cummings-John?

Constance Agatha Cummings-John, born Constance Horton in 1918 into a prominent Sierra Leone Creole family in Freetown, became one of West Africa's pioneering women in politics and education. She trained as a teacher in Britain before returning home to build a career centered on girls' education and civic reform. In 1938 she became the first woman in Africa to be elected to a municipal council when she won a seat on the Freetown City Council. She went on to found the Eleanor Roosevelt School for girls in Freetown, which grew to serve several hundred students by the early 1950s, and was appointed to the Freetown Council by the colonial governor in 1952. In the 1957 general election, held before Sierra Leonean women had full voting rights, she was one of only two women elected to the new House of Representatives. In 1966, Prime Minister Albert Margai appointed her Mayor of Freetown, making her the first woman to hold that office and one of the first women to serve as mayor of a major African city, though political turbulence limited her tenure to only a few months. She later spent much of her life in London, publishing her autobiography, 'Memoirs of a Krio Leader,' in 1995, and died on 21 February 2000.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Constance Cummings-John" · African Feminist Forum, "Constance Cummings-John (Sierra Leone)" · Black Then, "Constance Cummings-John: Politician, Teacher, and First African Woman Mayor of a Major African City"