ISAAC THEOPHILUS AKUNA WALLACE-JOHNSON
(1894-1965)
TRADE UNIONIST AND NATIONALIST LEADER
I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson led the first mass movement of Sierra Leoneans from all walks of life, working untiringly for unity and the
rights of the common man.
He was born into a poor Krio family in Wilberforce Village and attended mission schools. At the age of eighteen, he entered government service as a customs clerk, but was soon dismissed for helping to organise the first trade union in Sierra Leone. After serving as a clerk in the Carrier Corps, he joined the merchant marine as a common sailor, later editing a newspaper in London dedicated to promoting the welfare of seamen. In 1931, Wallace-Johnson founded the first labour union in Nigeria, and in 1936 he was jailed in the Gold Coast (Ghana) for publishing a scathing attack on colonialism.
He returned to Sierra Leone in 1938 and, within a year, had organised eight labour unions, a newspaper, and a mass political movement that swept aside all opposition in the city council elections. His West African Youth League was dedicated to greater popular representation in government, an expanded civic role for women, improved salaries and conditions for workers, and national unity among all Sierra Leoneans. Wallace-Johnson taunted the colonial authorities by making public certain secret documents showing the governor's agreement to painfully lower salaries for working people. British officials tried to prosecute Wallace-Johnson, but no local jury would convict him, and at one point, eighteen of Freetown's twenty-one lawyers were members of his Youth League. Moreover, Wallace-Johnson was personally popular and a likeable man with an excellent sense of humour, who once told a group of workers, "I am not anything above you; I am at par with you."
But the colonial authorities finally jailed Wallace-Johnson in 1939 under an Emergency Act adopted at the outset of World War II. He was ultimately exiled to Sherbro Island, where he spent most of his time teaching the local people how to read and write. Wallace-Johnson lived to become one of Sierra Leone's delegates to the London Independence Talks in 1960. He will long be remembered as an ardent patriot and a true man of the people.
(1894-1965)
TRADE UNIONIST AND NATIONALIST LEADER
I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson led the first mass movement of Sierra Leoneans from all walks of life, working untiringly for unity and the
rights of the common man.He was born into a poor Krio family in Wilberforce Village and attended mission schools. At the age of eighteen, he entered government service as a customs clerk, but was soon dismissed for helping to organise the first trade union in Sierra Leone. After serving as a clerk in the Carrier Corps, he joined the merchant marine as a common sailor, later editing a newspaper in London dedicated to promoting the welfare of seamen. In 1931, Wallace-Johnson founded the first labour union in Nigeria, and in 1936 he was jailed in the Gold Coast (Ghana) for publishing a scathing attack on colonialism.
He returned to Sierra Leone in 1938 and, within a year, had organised eight labour unions, a newspaper, and a mass political movement that swept aside all opposition in the city council elections. His West African Youth League was dedicated to greater popular representation in government, an expanded civic role for women, improved salaries and conditions for workers, and national unity among all Sierra Leoneans. Wallace-Johnson taunted the colonial authorities by making public certain secret documents showing the governor's agreement to painfully lower salaries for working people. British officials tried to prosecute Wallace-Johnson, but no local jury would convict him, and at one point, eighteen of Freetown's twenty-one lawyers were members of his Youth League. Moreover, Wallace-Johnson was personally popular and a likeable man with an excellent sense of humour, who once told a group of workers, "I am not anything above you; I am at par with you."
But the colonial authorities finally jailed Wallace-Johnson in 1939 under an Emergency Act adopted at the outset of World War II. He was ultimately exiled to Sherbro Island, where he spent most of his time teaching the local people how to read and write. Wallace-Johnson lived to become one of Sierra Leone's delegates to the London Independence Talks in 1960. He will long be remembered as an ardent patriot and a true man of the people.