Adelaide Casely-Hayford

On 24 January 1960,  Sierra Leone Creole advocate, activist, teacher, fiction writer, and feminist, Adelaide Casely-Hayford passed away. Committed to public service, she worked to improve the conditions of black men and women. As a pioneer of women's education in Sierra Leone, she played a key role in popularizing Pan-Africanist and feminist politics in the early 1900s. She set up a Girls' Vocational and Training School in Freetown in 1923 to instil cultural and racial pride for Sierra Leoneans under colonial rule. In pursuit of Sierra Leone national identity and cultural heritage, she caused a sensation by wearing traditional African attire in 1925 to attend a reception in honour of the Prince of Wales.

While in England, Adelaide married J. E. Casely-Hayford. Their daughter Gladys Casely-Hayford became a well-known Creole poet. After 25 years abroad, Adelaide Casely-Hayford returned to Sierra Leone. Inspired by the ideas of racial pride and co-operation advanced by Marcus Garvey, Casely-Hayford joined the Ladies Division of the Freetown Branch. She became a leading African feminist, using her speeches and writing to challenge male supremacy in Africa and to support African women's rights. 

She spent her later years writing her memoirs and short stories. Her short story "Mista Courifer" was featured in Langston Hughes' African Treasury: Articles, Essays, Stories, Poems (1960), a collection of short works by African writers, published in the United States. She died in Freetown on 24 January 1960.

(Source: Wikipedia accessed on 24 January 2025).

Selected Publications