Women And Resistance

Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli trace the life of Yelena Kanga, the Black Russian journalist, television presenter, and author whose family story spans Mississippi, Moscow, Zanzibar, and Uzbekistan. 

The episode explores resistance not only as protest but also as land ownership, education, survival, storytelling, and refusal of the roles history assigns you. 

Aya frames Yelena’s life as part of a larger generational struggle, while Adesoji guides the conversation through the historical arc and the meaning of its turning points.

Takeaways

*Yelena Kanga introduces herself as Yelena Abdoulayevna Kanga, born in Moscow on May 1, 1962, to a family shaped by African American, African, Jewish, and Soviet histories.
*She describes growing up as a Black child in Moscow, where she was often treated as a symbol of Soviet international brotherhood.
*The episode follows four generations of family resistance across race, religion, nation, and politics.
*Her great-grandfather, Hilliard Golden, was born enslaved in Mississippi, bought land after emancipation, and made land ownership an act of resistance.
*After the Ku Klux Klan burned the family’s land twice, they were forced to leave Mississippi for Alabama.
*Oliver and Bertha Biollet, a Jewish labour activist from an immigrant family, met in New York and eventually moved to the Soviet Union.
*In Uzbekistan, Oliver worked as a scientist on cotton development, taught at an institute, and served on Tashkent’s city council.
*Yelena’s mother became a pianist, tennis champion, historian, and scholar of African American history, publishing more than 100 articles on Africans in Russia and African music.
*Her father, Abdullah Kasim Khanga, was a Zanzibari political figure and the first and only prime minister of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba before his arrest and execution in 1969.
*Yelena discusses how tennis gave her a space where performance mattered more than colour, and how journalism became her path in Soviet media.
*She reflects on glasnost and a provocative sex-education program that addressed AIDS, homosexuality, and domestic violence.
*A 1991 American television feature helped reconnect her with Black Golden relatives in the United States.
*She also reconnects with Bertha’s Jewish relatives, restoring another part of the family story.

Chapters

(00:00) Opening the story of a Black Russian family across continents
(03:32) Yelena Kanga introduces her full name and Moscow birth
(04:35) Growing up as a Black girl with a Soviet accent
(06:05) The family tree stretching from Zanzibar to Mississippi and New York
(08:17) Four generations crossing racial, religious, and political lines
(10:45) Being used as Soviet proof of racial brotherhood
(12:45) Why Soviet anti-racism was real and incomplete
(16:56) Hilliard Golden, slavery, and the fight to own land
(22:23) Why land ownership was resistance in post-slavery Mississippi
(23:30) The Klan burns the Golden family out of Mississippi
(27:37) Standing on family land in the American South as a Soviet journalist
(30:42) Oliver Golden, Tuskegee, and learning through George Washington Carver
(31:58) Fighting in World War I and coming home to Red Summer violence
(33:17) Great Migration to Chicago and the limits of Black opportunity
(34:07) Communist organising as one of the only paths to equality
(35:11) Studying in Moscow at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
(36:39) Meeting Bertha Biollet in jail and building an interracial political family
(38:58) Moving to Soviet Uzbekistan for cotton, work, and survival
(41:22) Oliver as scientist, teacher, and city council member in Tashkent
(42:31) Visitors like Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson in the family orbit
(43:53) Yelena’s mother is born in Tashkent and grows up through Stalin’s terror
(45:58) Her mother’s piano, tennis, and scholarship career
(47:01) Studying African American history in Moscow to find her father through archives
(48:31) Yelena’s father Abdullah Kasim Hanga and Zanzibar’s political struggle
(49:37) Zanzibar revolution, short-lived power, and the rise of repression
(51:21) Her father’s arrest and execution in 1969
(54:02) American Black freedom icons seen from Moscow, and tennis as escape
(55:16) Journalism at Moscow State University and work at Moscow News
(56:39) Glasnost opens the door to freer reporting
(57:05) Boston, Black America, and seeing race from a new angle
(60:22) Breaking taboos on Soviet television with sex, AIDS, and domestic violence
(61:20) A TV broadcast helps reunite her with Golden relatives in the U.S.
(63:03) Reconnecting with Bertha’s Jewish family and recovering the full story
(64:19) Soul to Soul and her mother’s memoir My Long Journey Home
(66:06) Yelena reflects on a lifelong family legacy of resistance and resilience
(68:24) Aya’s closing reflection on Black excellence, survival, and breaking ground
(71:09) Final takeaway: turn hardship into advantage and live fully

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

In this episode of Women and Resistance, Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli spotlight the extraordinary life of Valaida Snow, a Black woman performer who used music, performance, travel, and self-reinvention as acts of survival and refusal. 

Valaida shares how talent, education, and style became tools for resisting racism, sexism, and erasure across the United States, Europe, and Asia.

We discuss her childhood in a travelling performance family, her mastery of multiple instruments, her public reinventions, and the way she was overlooked in American music history despite her acclaim and influence.

Takeaways

*Valaida Snow explains why her life story contains shifting details, and how show business often required reinvention and performance as protection.
*She describes growing up in a family of musicians and performers, with her mother Etta Snow teaching literacy, music, and discipline on the road.
*Valaida reflects on being on stage from age five, mastering ten instruments by age fifteen, and turning education into a portable survival skill.
*She discusses the racism built into early 20th-century entertainment, including minstrel traditions and segregated travel.
*She explains how playing trumpet—a so-called man’s instrument—challenged gender norms, and how she paired it with glamorous stagewear.
*She recalls touring Europe and Asia, finding opportunities abroad while recognising that Europe was far from free of prejudice.
*The conversation touches on Harlem, Chicago, Broadway, and figures including Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, W. C. Handy, Earl Hines, and Ethel Waters.
*Valaida describes the erasure of her contributions from credits and biographies, despite her work as a bandleader and performer.
*She reflects on an abusive early marriage and leaving with the skills to support herself.
*The episode addresses conflicting accounts of her wartime detention in Copenhagen and the ways stories about Black women performers can be distorted or simplified.

Chapters

00:00 - What happens when a Black woman’s talent resists society’s categories
03:19 - A family of performers and the making of a musical childhood
05:41 - The Piccanini Troubadours and performing inside racist systems
07:25 - Recognition abroad and neglect at home
10:00 - Surviving life on the road and in the spotlight
11:16 - Resistance through gender defiance, travel, and reinvention
14:56 - Valaida's death, then the story rewinds to the beginning
17:23 - Chattanooga and slavery as living memory
20:59 - The handcuff act and childhood fame
25:23 - Learning ten instruments without music school
29:01 - Why the trumpet became her instrument of refusal
33:24 - Child marriage, abuse, and choosing to leave
36:01 - Joining Holiday in Dixieland and beginning a career on her own terms
38:38 - Harlem, Broadway, and the rise of Valaida Snow
41:31 - Josephine Baker, Banville, and Black stardom
44:35 - Europe as an imperfect refuge
46:22 - Touring Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, and Batavia
50:02 - Chicago jazz, Louis Armstrong, and the Sunset Cafe
52:03 - The seven-pairs-of-shoes act and its global symbolism
55:11 - Louis Armstrong’s influence and the double standard of being called a mimic
58:58 - Conducting Rhapsody in Black and being left out of the credits
60:39 - Copenhagen, wartime detention, and conflicting accounts
64:20 - Love, scandal, and film work in Europe
67:14 - Returning to Harlem and rebuilding her career
68:12 - Wrigley Field, Town Hall, and late-career recognition
69:35 - Her final performance at the Palace Theatre and burial in Chattanooga
73:19 - Valaida’s closing message: embrace everything in you and do it all

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

In this episode of Women and Resistance, Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli center the life of Rosa Maria Castellanos Castellanos, also known as La Bayamesa, a formerly enslaved Cuban healer, field surgeon, hospital founder, and captain in the Cuban Liberation Army. 

Her story becomes a larger meditation on freedom, women’s labour in war, and how historical memory erases Black women’s leadership.

The conversation moves through slavery, the Ten Years’ War, improvised battlefield medicine, and the hidden networks of women who sustained the Cuban struggle. Rosa’s final reflections sharpen the episode’s core arguments: peace without freedom is not peace, and kindness without watchfulness can be fatal.

Takeaways 

*Rosa Maria Castellanos explains that she was born into slavery in Cuba and was later known as La Bayamesa, a woman from Bayamo.

*She describes becoming a healer, field surgeon, and founder of hospitals for wounded Cuban fighters in the mountains.

*The episode places her life in the context of Cuba’s sugar economy, slavery, and Spanish colonial rule.

*Rosa recounts her mother’s plant knowledge, showing how healing traditions were passed through enslaved Black women.

*She explains how she used green wood ash, heated metal, leaves, bark, and poultices to treat battlefield wounds when no formal medicine was available.

*Her husband, Jose Florentino Varano Estrada, is named as a crucial partner who helped restrain wounded men during treatment and fought beside her.

*The episode highlights the burning of Bayamo by its own people rather than surrendering it back to Spain, framing it as an act of collective resistance.

*Rosa details her work in the Sierra Maestra, where she carried messages, gathered food, mended clothes, made shoes, and treated soldiers without ever being officially appointed.

*The episode emphasises that women in the Cuban wars were not passive supporters but cooks, spies, nurses, couriers, and combatants whose names were often lost.

*Rosa reflects on being called “property” by enslavers and “Capitana” by General Máximo Gómez, underscoring how language tracks power and liberation.

Chapters

00:00 — Introducing Women and Resistance and the mission of recovering erased women’s histories

02:47 — Rosa questions how her story will be told without Spanish and begins her own account

04:59 — Born into slavery, renamed, and shaped by Cuban colonial violence

08:33 — Green wood ash, heated iron, and battlefield medicine under impossible conditions

11:27 — Why Rosa was called La Bayamesa and later Capitana

12:36 — The barracoon, slavery’s daily violence, and why birth dates were lost

18:46 — Her parents’ forced renaming and the memory carried through her mother’s hands

20:13 — Plant medicine, Indigenous knowledge, and healing learned from women and elders

24:13 — Childhood labour, cane fields, and the realities of Cuba’s sugar economy

28:29 — Cuba, Spain, and the long survival of slavery after abolition elsewhere

31:40 — Flowers in her hair as an act of defiance against enslavement

33:30 — Love with Jose Florentino Varano Estrada as a form of freedom

36:13 — The 1868 uprising, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, and the start of the Ten Years’ War

41:13 — Bayamo burned rather than surrendered, and the meaning of choosing freedom

44:26 — Women’s hidden work in rebel camps and Rosa’s many roles beyond nursing

50:32 — Building hidden field hospitals and feeding starving wounded fighters

53:30 — Catching a Spanish spy and the moral complexity of war

56:24 — Máximo Gómez visits the hospital and names her Capitana

58:15 — The Pact of Zanjón and the limits of freedom after the war

61:07 — Martí’s vision of Cuba, the funding of another war, and Rosa returning at 60

63:38 — The Spanish-American War, U.S. intervention, and Cuba’s compromised independence

67:19 — Her godson Nicolás Guillén, her will, and her final legacy

68:42 — Rosa’s death, military honours, and a street renamed in her memory

71:44 — Final lessons: peace without freedom is not peace, and kindness requires watchfulness

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

This episode profiles Luisa Diaz Diogo, Mozambique’s first woman Minister of Planning and Finance and first woman Prime Minister, in a wide-ranging conversation about nation-building under colonialism, war, structural adjustment, and recovery. 

She explains why economics is inseparable from liberation, and why peace must be funded, coordinated, and protected.

The conversation also connects her personal life to national history, from being born in a rice field in colonial Tete to raising a family while helping steer Mozambique through war, debt, famine, floods, and AIDS.

Takeaways

• Luisa Diogo’s early life in Tete, Mozambique, and how her mother’s labour in a rice field shaped her worldview
• Colonial rule in Mozambique, including forced labour, assimilado status, and the extraction of African wealth and labour
• Her mother as her first economics teacher, and the lesson that girls must develop “twice the capacity” to be valued in society
• Why she chose accounting and budgeting as tools of liberation: no money, no schools, no health care, no development
• The transition from independence struggle to state-building, including literacy campaigns, nationalisation, and socialist planning
• Mozambique’s civil war, foreign-backed destabilisation through RENAMO, and the real human costs of roads mined, schools burned, and a million deaths
• Structural adjustment, IMF and World Bank negotiations, and her argument that you have to understand global institutions in order to protect national interests
• Peacebuilding as a budgeted process: demobilisation, reintegration, reconstruction, and the idea that “if you do not pay for the peace, the war will come back to collect”
• Her leadership roles as Deputy Minister, Minister of Planning and Finance, and later Prime Minister, including balancing reconstruction with macroeconomic stability
• HIV and AIDS policy, women’s rights, reproductive health, and her push for more women in leadership across Africa

Chapters

(00:00) Why Luisa Diogo matters in the Pan-African struggle

(01:49) Asking about her upbringing and path into numbers

(04:41) The Mozambican woman as a symbol of survival and improvisation

(06:01) “I governed the way my mother cooked”

(08:21) Born in a rice field during colonial Mozambique

(11:24) What Portuguese colonialism looked like on the ground

(14:11) Forced labour, cotton, and labour extraction across southern Africa

(17:56) Her mother’s lessons: housework, discipline, and survival for girls

(22:06) Cahora Bassa, colonial permanence, and resistance politics

(23:57) Mueda, Frelimo, Samora Machel, and the road to armed struggle

(26:23) Why voting and political participation are matters of life and death

(28:21) Commercial school, bookkeeping, and the power of numbers

(33:38) Independence and the collapse of Mozambique’s trained administrative class

(35:03) Building a new state: schools, literacy, vaccination, socialism

(36:45) Supporting neighbouring liberation movements and paying the price

(38:18) Joining the Ministry of Finance and studying while working

(41:14) War, famine, drought, and Operation Production

(43:21) Nkomati Accord, IMF entry, and managing scarcity

(45:03) Rising through the finance ministry during structural adjustment

(47:42) Multiparty politics, a new constitution, and studying financial economics

(49:04) Demobilising soldiers and planning for postwar reintegration

(51:34) “Peace has a budget”

(53:14) Rebuilding Mozambique through a coordinated national project plan

(55:02) Learning the World Bank from the inside

(56:21) Drafting the first postwar five-year program

(58:10) Cutting inflation from 75 per cent to 5 per cent

(59:23) Debt, donors, and refusing rule by “40 masters”

(60:52) Corruption, the Banco Comercial de Mozambique case, and Carlos Cardoso’s murder

(62:30) The 2000 floods and rebuilding after total devastation

(63:57) Becoming Prime Minister and the limits of growth statistics

(64:37) HIV and AIDS, women’s vulnerability, and speaking openly about sex

(66:17) The Maputo Plan of Action and organising women’s leadership

(67:40) UN reform, one country-one program logic, and system-wide coherence

(68:33) The personal cost of public service

(70:14) Running for president, losing, and passing the baton

(71:42) Leadership as responsibility, not privilege

(72:45) Her final message: “Compriste” - you completed your work

Closing takeaway
Luisa Diogo’s story argues that liberation is not only fought on the battlefield. It is also fought in budgets, institutions, public health, and the long, unglamorous work of keeping a country alive.

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

This episode centers on Cecile Fatiman, the Haitian mambo whose role in the Bois Caïman uprising helped ignite the Haitian Revolution. Adesoji Iginla and Aya as Cecile Fatiman use storytelling, history, and spiritual teaching to show how resistance lives in memory, ritual, ancestry, and joy.

We discuss how colonial power tried to erase African spiritual knowledge, why Vodou is a structured faith rather than a horror-story stereotype, and how liberation requires both strategy and spiritual grounding.

The conversation closes with a practical reader-style spiritual exercise and a reminder that joy itself can be a form of resistance.

Takeaways

*In this episode: why Cecile Fatiman matters to Haiti, the Atlantic world, and Black liberation history.
*The debate around Fatiman’s origins and why women’s histories are so often under-documented or questioned.
*Saint-Domingue as the “richest colony in the world,” built on the labour of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans.
*How colonialism functioned as theft not just of land and labour, but of cosmology, language, medicine, and memory.
*Vodou as spiritual lineage, ancestral connection, and a way of remembering peoplehood after enslavement.
*The night of August 14, 1791, at Bois Caïman, where Fatiman, Dutty Boukman, and others gathered in secrecy to organise revolt.
*The role of ritual, blood oath, drums, call-and-response, and collective planning in turning resistance into action.
*Why the drum was treated as dangerous by empire: not just as music, but as communication, coordination, and survival technology.
*The idea that Black spiritual systems were disguised inside Catholic imagery, songs, and everyday practice to preserve them under colonial rule.
*A closing message on joy, self-love, and emotional freedom as part of breaking generational chains.

Chapters

00:00 - Opening the show and framing women’s resistance as living history
01:01 - Introducing Cecile Fatiman and the significance of Haiti
02:16 - Fatiman on origin stories, uncertainty, and historical erasure
05:41 - Fatiman identifies herself as a mambo and priestess of Vodou
06:27 - Why liberation begins by returning to ancestors and spirit
08:16 - Saint-Domingue’s wealth, sugar, coffee, and indigo built on slavery
09:59 - Half a million enslaved Africans and the violence behind the word “enslaved”
11:47 - Motherhood as resistance under slavery
12:43 - “Cruelty” as the economic policy of slavery
13:09 - What slavery could not take: drums, songs, and spiritual inheritance
15:14 - Vodou as continuity, memory, and a way to remain, people
16:09 - Fatiman explains being chosen as a mambo
16:36 - The night of August 14 and the gathering in Bois Caïman
18:01 - Secrecy, safe spaces, and 200 men risking their lives to organise
19:33 - Calling the Iwa and the arrival of Erzuli Danto
21:12 - The black pig sacrifice and the oath to die free rather than enslaved
23:51 - Dutty Boukman’s words and the logic of call-and-response
25:44 - The uprising begins eight days later in northern Saint-Domingue
26:17 - Why colonisers reduced the revolution to folklore
27:43 - Colonialism as theft of land, labour, and cosmology
32:57 - Ancestors, drums, and inherited intelligence as revolutionary technology
36:53 - Frantz Fanon on colonialism distorting the past and future
38:06 - Why empire fears the drum more than the machete
39:05 - Haiti becomes the first Black republic and what freedom still demands
40:54 - Vodou explained as a structured faith, not superstition
42:21 - The Iwa, the Orishas, and shared spiritual lineages
45:27 - Ritual as protocol, apprenticeship, and resistance in camouflage
46:51 - A warning against treating spiritual traditions like costumes or aesthetics
48:36 - Why women’s histories are disputed and how records get written without women holding the pen
49:34 - Fatiman’s life details: marriage, age, and later generations preserving her testimony
53:05 - A spiritual question and pendulum demonstration
58:58 - Closing guidance on joy, self-love, and refusing shame
63:23 - Farewell and teaser for the next Women in Resistance episode

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

This episode features host Adesoji Iginla and co-host Aya Fubara Eneli in conversation with Delphine Tsogo, who reflects on a life shaped by colonial partition, forest-based community knowledge, nursing, politics, and women’s organising in Cameroon. 

She traces how each stage of her life informed her work for women, children, and public welfare.

The conversation matters because Delphine does not separate personal biography from public policy - she shows how language, education, healthcare, and political structure all affect whether women can live with dignity.

Takeaways 

*Delphine Tsogo introduces her roots in Lumi, deep in the eastern forest of Cameroon, and describes growing up under British and French colonial rule.
*She explains how the forest, local women, and family discipline shaped her early understanding of responsibility, survival, and authority.
*Delphine recounts being educated in Douala and Toulouse, and how colonial schooling opened doors while also trying to erase her language and identity.
*She discusses starting out as a nurse, becoming an athlete, and how track and field taught her discipline, precision, and resilience.
*She reflects on becoming a wife, mother of eight biological children, and later the minister who created Cameroon’s Ministry of Social Affairs.
*Delphine explains the political dilemma of serving under an authoritarian system while trying to secure clinics, schools, and maternal health support for women and children.
*She talks about entering the National Assembly, later serving as Vice Minister for Health and Public Welfare, and carrying out public service while visibly pregnant.


Chapters

00:00 - Opening the conversation with Delphine Tsogo and the theme of women pushing back colonial power
03:16 - Delphine begins her life story and reluctance to center herself over her public work
05:04 - The origin of the name Cameroon and the colonial history behind it
06:32 - Born in Lumi in 1935 under a British mandate and raised in the forest
07:31 - Lessons from nature, discipline, and the women of her childhood
09:30 - Her father, books, and the hidden architecture of female authority
11:21 - Refusing to be decorative in a room full of men
12:21 - Her father’s career inside the French colonial bureaucracy
14:09 - Learning horse riding and rifle use and challenging gender expectations
15:41 - Her father’s rule: build your own name
17:19 - Starting her professional life as a nurse after school
18:02 - Track and field, high jump, long jump, and the discipline of measurable performance
20:27 - Education in Douala and the cost of colonial schooling
21:56 - Losing her mother tongue through French education
23:18 - Wifehood, motherhood, and later founding the Ministry of Social Affairs
24:44 - Gaining literacy in the coloniser’s language and using it against the system
25:57 - A writer visits her school and plants the seed for her future as a novelist
28:05 - Finishing school in 1955 and deciding never to wait for permission to be useful
31:38 - Studying nursing in Toulouse and seeing France as equipment, not assimilation
33:32 - Later life, financial struggles, and being helped by a woman inspired by her public example
35:24 - What nursing taught her about birth, death, suffering, and state neglect
38:46 - Meeting and marrying Sotasanga, who became a major figure in Cameroon’s public life
39:55 - Returning home in 1960 as Cameroon becomes independent
41:07 - Independence as both possibility and danger
42:00 - The reunification vote and the creation of the federal republic
44:02 - The UPC, the armed struggle, and the violence that continued after independence
46:20 - Ruben Um Nyobè and the erased history of resistance
47:08 - Serving inside Ahidjo’s one-party state and the moral cost of that choice
48:25 - Her bet that compromised state machinery could still deliver resources to women and children
50:32 - Her nursing work in Yaoundé and Garoua and the gap between promises and reality
53:13 - Becoming national president of the Council of Cameroonian Women in 1964
55:00 - How women organised through council structures when the new republic ignored them
56:28 - National Assembly work and later appointment as Vice Minister for Health and Public Welfare
57:31 - Women who later told her their mothers survived because of clinics she helped create
58:17 - Minister for Social Affairs from 1975 to 1984, including while pregnant with her eighth child
59:55 - International leadership and recognition for her work on women’s development
61:47 - Publishing novels in the 1980s to challenge culture through story, not law alone
63:45 - Her environmental work defending forests and supporting sustainable local economies
67:27 - Why African stories must include women as well as men
68:41 - Final message: create your own standing and build what you want

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

This episode of Women and Resistance celebrates Roberta Flack’s life, music, and political commitments through a wide-ranging conversation that moves from childhood to global activism.
 
Adesoji Iginla frames Flack as an artist who never separated art from justice, and Aya embodies Flack, responding with stories about music, teaching, love, and the causes she backed throughout her career.

We discuss how her family, education, and early work as a teacher shaped the artist she became, as well as the songs and collaborations that made her a legend. The conversation also highlights her resistance work on Black self-determination, gender, anti-apartheid solidarity, and music education.

Takeaways

*Roberta Flack traces her roots to Black Mountain, North Carolina, and remembers the family home where music was everywhere.
*Her father, Lauron, was a self-taught jazz pianist, while her mother, Irene, played organ at church.
*Flack recalls the pea green upright piano her father rescued from a junkyard and repaired for her.
*She explains how classical training led her to Howard University, where she won a full music scholarship at age 15 and graduated at 19 with a degree in music education.
*Before fame, she was a schoolteacher in segregated schools in Farmville, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.
*She shares how singing at Mr Henry’s on Capitol Hill led to her discovery and first record deal.
*Flack explains why her 1969 debut album, First Take, opened with the protest song “Compared to What.”
*She reflects on “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” as a lament for the hidden lives of gay men before Stonewall.
*She tells the story behind “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and how Clint Eastwood helped bring it to a wider audience.
*She discusses her back-to-back Grammy wins for Record of the Year.
*She talks about her collaboration with Donny Hathaway, including “Where Is the Love,” “The Closer I Get to You,” and “Be Real Black for Me.”
*Flack recounts her activism with Jesse Jackson, Operation Breadbasket, and Operation PUSH.
*She emphasises that music is never neutral and that every performance is a choice about the world an artist helps create.
*She remembers her friendships and solidarity with Angela Davis, Stevie Wonder, Ben Vereen, Nelson Mandela, and others.
*She highlights her work in education and philanthropy, including the Roberta Flack School of Music and the Roberta Flack Foundation.
*She closes with reflections on ALS, the loss of her singing voice, and her children’s picture book.
*The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music, and her advice to use your gift before it is too late.

Chapters

00:00 - Welcome to Women and Resistance and the legacy of Roberta Flack
03:22 - A musical household in Black Mountain, North Carolina
05:24 - The pea green piano rescued from a junkyard
07:10 - Classical training, Howard University, and music education
09:48 - Teaching in segregated schools before fame
12:48 - Singing at Mr Henry’s and being discovered
13:17 - An interracial marriage under Virginia segregation
16:02 - Why the marriage ended when her career took off
18:17 - Hearing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” on a plane
22:33 - Les McCann, Atlantic Records, and First Take
23:28 - Why her debut album opened with “Compared to What”
26:31 - Reinterpreting “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” for hidden queer lives
30:03 - Clint Eastwood brings “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to the screen
32:24 - Back-to-back Record of the Year Grammy wins
35:33 - Donny Hathaway, “The Closer I Get to You,” and “Be Real Black for Me”
40:09 - Operation Breadbasket, Jesse Jackson, and Operation PUSH
43:14 - Music as a form of political choice
44:16 - Friendship with Angela Davis and songs that affirm dignity
45:58 - Standing with Stevie Wonder and Nelson Mandela
48:19 - “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” and later collaborations
49:55 - The Roberta Flack School of Music and her foundation
52:51 - Awards, honours, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame absence
56:23 - Hosting Brunch with Roberta Flack and recording into her 70s
57:31 - ALS, her final recording, and the lesson to use your gift now
58:53 - The Green Piano and the final years of her life
60:35 - Closing reflections on a life fully lived and shared

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

This episode of Women in Resistance features Adesoji Iginla in conversation with Queen Nandi, with Aya Fubara Eneli joining the introduction and framing.

The discussion traces Nandi’s life from marginalisation and exile to her role as Queen Mother, centring the political, cultural, and personal costs of raising Shaka and resisting shame.

We discuss how women are written out of history, how colonial and patriarchal narratives distort memory, and why revenge can become its own trap. Queen Nandi also reflects on motherhood, lineage, exile, and the long reach of cruelty and resilience across generations.

Key topics

*Queen Nandi explains how her story was “forgotten by most,” preserved by oral tradition, and often written by men and colonial observers.
*She situates her origins in a minor clan near the Tugela and Mlatuse rivers, before the region was named Natal or South Africa.
*Nandi describes how women’s labour in cattle-keeping societies built wealth that men inherited, while women were often reduced to footnotes.
*She recounts the courtship tradition of ukulobanga and the social danger of pregnancy outside marriage in Zulu custom.
*Nandi tells the contested story of her pregnancy with Senzangakhona, including the accusation that she had a parasite rather than a child.
*She explains how the insult “shaka” became attached to her son’s name, and how that rejection shaped his early life.
*Nandi describes exile, famine, and the repeated rejection she and Shaka faced from both husband and clan.
*She frames giving birth to Shaka as her first act of resistance, especially in the face of attempts to discredit her.
*The episode explores how Shaka’s childhood humiliation, violence, and instability may have influenced the ruler he became.
*Nandi reflects on her later role as Queen Mother, her authority at court, and her influence over political relationships and royal alliances.
*She discusses the consequences of her death, including Shaka’s grief, the nationwide mourning, and the fragility of power after her passing.
*The conversation closes with a warning against revenge, except in the context of resisting colonisers, and a call to nurture children who have been rejected or shamed.

Chapters

(00:00) Opening the series on women in resistance
(00:51) Introducing Queen Nandi and her significance in Zulu history
(02:08) “My story has been forgotten” - oral history versus colonial writing
(04:43) Born not as a queen, but as a daughter of a minor chief
(07:12) A woman without a throne, an army, or even a home
(09:12) Early life, cattle-keeping, and women’s labour in Zulu society
(11:44) Ukulobanga and the customs around courtship and intimacy
(13:12) Meeting Senzangakhona and the politics of male heirs
(14:49) Competing stories about the pregnancy and public denial
(18:37) Why an unmarried pregnancy was a catastrophe
(19:15) The accusation of a “parasite” and protecting the royal house
(22:26) Negotiating 55 cattle for marriage
(24:17) Shaka is born and the meaning of his name
(25:15) Being sent home to recover and nurse the child
(27:19) Rival wives, succession anxiety, and exile
(30:46) Shaka learns to fight and the healer’s prophecy
(32:27) Leaving the Ilangeni and finding refuge with the Kwabe
(33:49) “My first act of resistance” - giving birth to Shaka
(35:08) How humiliation shaped Shaka’s discipline and violence
(38:11) Grief, exile, and surviving the famine years
(42:43) Shaka rises under Dingiswayo and military transformation begins
(44:42) Succession after Senzangakhona’s death
(46:10) Short-stabbing spear, regiments, and the building of a regional power
(50:18) Queen Mother authority, rituals, and her own court
(52:44) Politics at court and rival centres of influence
(54:05) Shaka’s grief after her death and the nation-wide mourning
(56:25) Why she protected Shaka despite everything
(58:53) Death, colonial storytellers, and distorted histories
(63:41) How Shaka’s military system shaped later Zulu resistance
(65:24) “No name given by others ever contains a woman”
(68:49) Revenge versus justice, and why revenge is a dead spiral
(70:37) What present-day leaders can learn from the story of Shaka
(74:38) A closing message for women, rejected children, and mothers
(77:31) Final call to nurture the child the world rejects

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Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

This episode of Women in Resistance centers on Sarah Rector’s life story, from her birth in Indian Territory to the oil boom that made her a national curiosity. 

Sarah Rector and host Adesoji Iginla trace how race, law, land theft, and guardianship shaped her fortunes and the way her story was told. 

It matters because Rector’s experience shows how quickly wealth, Black childhood, and state control could collide in early 20th-century America.

Takeaways

*Sarah Rector introduces herself by correcting the record
*She explains that the public mostly knows her as “the richest colored girl in the world,” but that label reduced her to a number rather than a person.
*She pushes back on Hollywood versions of her life, including fabricated details and a white saviour narrative.
*How a newspaper headline changed her life
*Rector says the Kansas City Star’s 1913 reporting turned her into “$300 a day” and made her a public spectacle.
*She describes letters from strangers who wanted to marry her, claim her money, or argue that she should not possess wealth at all.
*Her family’s history in Indian Territory
*Rector was born in 1902 in a two-room cabin near Taft, Oklahoma.
*She explains that her family were Creek Freedmen and that their history included slavery under Creek and Muscogee people, complicating simplified stories about Native nations and slavery.
*Land, allotment, and the Dawes Act
*Rector’s 160-acre allotment in Glenpool was valued at only $550 and was burdened by taxes.
*She frames the land as a burden before oil was discovered, not an early blessing.
*The oil strike that made her wealthy

Chapters

00:00 - Opening the episode and introducing Sarah Rector
00:41 - Why Rector’s story matters and how the state took control
01:52 - Rector on reclaiming her own story from Hollywood myths
02:34 - The “$300 a day” headline and becoming a public spectacle
04:19 - Letters, demands, and public obsession with her money
05:28 - Birth in Taft, Oklahoma and her family background
06:32 - Creek Freedmen, slavery, and the historical complication
08:17 - Why neat stories about Native nations and slavery break down
09:56 - The Trail of Tears, Andrew Jackson, and broken treaties
11:53 - The 1866 treaty and Creek Freedmen citizenship
13:35 - Dawes allotment and the break-up of communal land
14:06 - Her 160-acre allotment in Glenpool
15:15 - Taxes, poverty, and the land as a burden
16:36 - Leased to oil before anyone knew its value
18:24 - The spring 1913 gusher on her land
20:00 - Monthly royalties and the scale of her wealth
21:05 - Newspaper racism and “the richest Negro girl” framing
22:39 - Why she could not legally control her money
24:08 - Court-appointed guardianship and the risk of exploitation
25:52 - W.E.B. Du Bois, the NAACP, and investigations into guardianship
28:19 - Black child wealth, public fascination, and white greed
30:21 - NAACP Children’s Department and oversight efforts
31:09 - Judge Leahy and the demand for a square deal
32:30 - The “honorary white” proposal and why it failed
34:43 - Tuskegee, attempted kidnapping, and protection by students
36:04 - Buying land and building a five-room cottage
38:31 - The gap between the living woman and the legend
39:26 - Biographies, family accounts, and correcting misinformation
41:41 - Her fight to end guardianship in 1922
44:46 - Family relocation to Kansas City and Black prosperity
46:12 - A court certifies her as mentally sound
46:55 - Marriage to Kenneth Campbell and family life
48:13 - The Rector Mansion, jazz, and Black elite life
49:16 - Second marriage and business partnership
50:13 - The Great Depression and the collapse of her fortune
52:33 - Death in 1967 and the meaning of family wealth
54:59 - Burial in Black Jack Cemetery near her roots
56:32 - Final message on personhood and resisting dehumanisation

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

In this episode, we explore the lives and legacies of remarkable women who defied odds, preserved their agency, and inspired future generations.

From an assassinated leader to the mathematician behind GPS, from a Montana mail carrier to a mother's decades-long fight for her stolen daughters — this special Women and Resistance season review brings together extraordinary women whose resistance took different shapes.

Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. and Adesoji Iginla, this episode revisits the stories of the last season, asking what unites their radically different acts of refusal against erasure, ownership, and silence.

 Takeaways

*The resilience and agency of women like Josephine Baker, Sylvia del Villa, and Gladys West.
*The importance of intentional spaces for Black empowerment.
*Lessons from women who faced systemic oppression and thrived.
*The role of cultural preservation and storytelling in resistance.
*The significance of intergenerational mentorship and legacy.

Chapters

0:01 — Welcome to Women in Resistance and episode overview
2:03 — Looking back on the season and the pace of the work
2:13 — How Aya transitions between women each week
4:45 — The most memorable story: Millie and Christine McCoy
8:36 — Favourite or most memorable episode this season
12:27 — Erna Brodber and Sylvia del Villard as major inspirations
14:45 — Gladys West and the everyday impact of her work
15:40 — Why intentional black spaces matter
20:13 — Does Aya ever stop or rest?
23:22 — Which woman best reflects Aya’s activism
25:24 — “Restorative knowledge” and why the series matters
26:09 — Mbokomu and the power of black women building from nothing
27:13 — Courage, agency, and lessons from the women covered
29:39 — Favourite and least favourite costume of the season
33:09 — Mary Fields as a standout character
34:05 — Expanding on Josephine Baker
36:52 — Gladys West and quiet excellence
39:00 — Books, reading habits, and the bookshelf question
42:37 — How many books they read in a week
45:34 — Decompressing after going out of character
47:48 — Nina Simone as one of the hardest to shake
50:19 — The common thread across all the women
54:51 — Owning your image as a strategy
55:38 — The importance of memory keeping
57:01 — What’s next: Sarah Rector and the new season
57:33 — Final thoughts on freedom and presentation
60:09 — Closing remarks and call to action

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!