I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson

He was born to poor Creole parents in Wilberforce, British Sierra Leone, a village adjoining the capital city, Freetown. His father was a farmer, and his mother was a fish trader. Educated at Centenary Tabernacle Day School and later the United Methodist Collegiate School. Forced to leave school after two years to support his family, he took a job at the customs department in 1913, where he was dismissed for organising a labour strike but reinstated a year later after the secretary of State for the Colonies assessed the case. In 1916, he joined the Carrier Corps as a clerk during World War I, serving in Cameroon, East Africa, and the Middle East as part of the British infantry. After being demobilized in 1920, he worked briefly as a municipal clerk in Freetown, where he claimed to have exposed corruption leading to the arrest of top officials. After losing his municipal government job in 1926, Wallace-Johnson left Sierra Leone and worked as a sailor, though details of this period are unclear due to conflicting accounts. He either served on an American ocean liner or as an engine hand for Elder Dempster Lines, giving different versions in interviews and lectures. In 1929, he worked for a year in Sekondi as a clerk in a trading company. All during this time, he wrote articles in the Aurora, a newspaper edited by H. C. Bankole-Bright. ==Union organiser and Communist affiliations==

Wallace-Johnson joined the UK National Seamen’s Union and reportedly edited The Seafarer, a newsletter for black sailors. He is also believed to have joined the Communist Party, which actively recruited among sailors in port cities. In 1930, he co-founded the Nigerian Workers' Union, the first trade union in Nigeria, alongside Communist-affiliated Frank Macauley. That same year, he represented the Sierra Leone Railway Workers’ Union at the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in Hamburg, using the alias E. Richards. He was elected to the presidium and wrote for Negro Worker under another alias, Wal. Daniels, advocating for labour rights and self-organization. His involvement led colonial governments to ban the publication. By 1933, Wallace-Johnson joined Negro Worker's editorial board and attended the International Labor and Defence Conference in Moscow, where he claimed to have studied Marxist-Leninist theory and roomed with Jomo Kenyatta. It was here that he became influenced by the pan-Africanist George Padmore, who was the Comintern-appointed coordinator of Communist activities among blacks. He returned to Lagos, Nigeria, in 1933, but was deported by authorities months later for his trade union activities. banning "seditious" literature, including Negro Worker. He was criticized by the Gold Coast Independent for disrupting politics. Wallace-Johnson also had a strained relationship with Edgar Parry’s Labour Movement. ==Gold Coast politics==

, a British colony. On the invitation of R. B. Wuta-Ofei, editor of the Gold Coast Spectator, Wallace-Johnson settled in the Gold Coast, where he would gain his first experience in mass politics. These men, all respected in their communities, belonged to the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, a once popular political force. They intended to either revive the political influence the society carried or to create a new organisation altogether. The group, which became the predecessor to the Gold Coast chapter of the West African Youth League, found a fresh dynamic leader in Wallace-Johnson. Through contacts in London, he arranged for questions to be asked by sympathetic left-wing Labour Party members in the British Parliament about working conditions and rights in the colonies. Wallace-Johnson also established a new form of mass demonstrations, in which members of the traditional elite no longer dominated African politics. In Wallace-Johnson's reformation of mass meetings, ordinary citizens could vocalise their political opinions. These people took full advantage of the new system; they frequently lambasted colonial authorities and the political establishment, in general. The idea won Wallace-Johnson widespread acclaim and adulation. He also initiated a fund to assist the legal appeal team in the Scottsboro case in the United States. The case, in which nine young African-Americans were sentenced to death for raping two white women (who were found to have fabricated the entire story), sent shockwaves to liberal and radical political organisations around the world. The Communist Party sought to raise funds for the appeal, using the case as proof of the injustices suffered in a capitalist society. Wallace-Johnson used the case to rally Gold Coasters to support their brethren in the United States. He increased his campaigning for civil liberties and improved working conditions after a June 1934 mining disaster in Prestea killed 41 people. At the time, there was no legislation providing the conditions and guidelines for workers' compensation. Mining companies had poor safety records and they underpaid the families of miners injured or killed on the job. Wallace-Johnson disguised himself as a miner to witness first-hand the working conditions there. His experiences gained him some political leverage, which he used to convince the colonial government and the Colonial Office to pass legislation that would improve working conditions and increase workers' compensation. Miners and relatives of the killed miners also protested at mass meetings, and liberal members of Parliament questioned the Conservative government regarding how they intended to address the matter. He typically portrayed the Soviet Union as a haven of freedom or capitalist systems like the one in the United States as corrupt. His two most famous works, Das Sdrarstwuiet and The Declaration of Capitalism, were published multiple times in the Negro Worker and were widely received by the general public. In Das Sdrarstwuiet, Wallace-Johnson praised the freedoms given to citizens in the Soviet Union, while in The Declaration of Capitalism, he described the political oppression faced by those living in a capitalist society. Meeting the criteria of seditious literature were the Negro Worker, publications of the International Committee of Negro Workers and the League against Imperialism, and all works by George Padmore and Nancy Cunard. Attached to the seditions legislation was a waterworks bill, which would tax the municipalities of Accra, Sekondi, and Cape Coast. These bills sparked political agitation by the social elite, who didn't want their freedom of speech and expression to be restricted, and by the lower-middle class, who had resisted the government's prior attempts to levy direct taxes. Mass meetings were held, protests were organised, resolutions were passed and delegations to address the issues were proposed to be sent to England. However, Wallace-Johnson urged the populace not to send a delegation to England. He believed that more could be accomplished if people launched a grassroots movement by organising protests and demonstrations in their home towns. Then, English people sympathetic to the colonies' problems could apply pressure on their government to get the laws revoked. Wallace-Johnson's plan worked: two members of Parliament, who felt that the new laws were unreasonable, questioned the colonial secretary about the Sedition Act. ==West African Youth League==

From September 1934, Wallace-Johnson became the subject of scathing articles in the Gold Coast Independent. The headline of one such article read "Meddlesome Wallace-Johnson Must Either Shut Up or Get Out: The Gold Coast Wants Helpers Not Rabid Confusionists." The author of the vehement attack article, speculated to be the editor of the paper, told Wallace-Johnson to go to Liberia, where he could become president, or to Nigeria. He believed that if the leader's actions were not suppressed, the "country and its vital interests [would be] in hopeless ruin." Soon after, a press war erupted between the Gold Coast Independent and two papers supporting Wallace-Johnson, the Gold Coast Spectator and the Vox Populi. Wallace-Johnson had the final word after publishing a group of articles in the Vox Populi profiling the conflict, entitled "The Gold Coast Independent and Myself". He also briefly associated with the Friends of Ashanti Freedom Society, a group composed of young educated men who opposed the restoration of the Ashanti Empire. The men believed that if the empire was restored, they would be denied a voice in political decision-making. Wallace-Johnson forwarded the group's petition against restoration to the League against Imperialism, but the league refused to support the group's request. Afterward, he wrote a pamphlet, describing his support for the restoration of the Ashanti Empire. In 1935, Wallace-Johnson met Nnamdi Azikiwe, the future nationalist President of Nigeria, in Accra. Azikiwe tried to dissociate himself from Wallace-Johnson's Marxist ideologies, as he believed that there was no chance that his own ideas were compatible with those of his fellow politician. Both men believed that a renaissance needed to occur in Africa, but they disagreed over the methods of doing so. Each man believed that his own idea would prevail in the future. Azikiwe described his first meeting with Wallace-Johnson as such, Having begun with his speeches and activities and influenced by Azikiwe's ideas, Wallace-Johnson founded the West African Youth League (WAYL) in June 1935 and was appointed its first organising secretary. The WAYL was intended to be an all-West African organisation, even incorporating the people of nearby French and Portuguese colonies, however, this never came about. The WAYL focused on political and economic objectives, which, if reached, would produce "a standard of living worth humanity". Their most important goal was to obtain parliamentary representation for the colonies in London, which would give people a greater voice in government. Like the earlier Aborigines Rights Protection Society and the National Congress of British West Africa, the WAYL sought to protect natural and constitutional rights, liberties and privileges for the African populaces. However, the WAYL was more militant, and eagerly sought to lead the West African people through "economic, social and political emancipation". As Wallace-Johnson wrote in the Negro Worker, the league was trying to drive "towards the establishing of a foundation for national independence". but opposed European interpretations of Christianity because of its use as a justification for slavery and colonialism by some politicians. By 1936, the WAYL had established 17 branches in major cities throughout the Gold Coast. In 1936, Wallace-Johnson was arrested for sedition after publishing an article in the African Morning Post condemning Christianity, European civilisation and imperialism. The colonial governor proposed that he be deported in lieu of being put on trial. After Wallace-Johnson accepted this offer, the governor went back on his word and had the political activist placed on trial in front of the Assize Court. Wallace-Johnson travelled to London to appeal his conviction and to also establish connections for the WAYL. The WAYL made their entrance into the political arena by supporting the Mambii Party and its candidate, Kojo Thompson, in his candidacy for the 1935 Legislative Council elections. Afterward, Wallace-Johnson equipped himself with new political tactics. He began attacking the "old school" generation of politicians, who he believed couldn't lead the future generations. He stated that "the work needs renewed zeal and energy. It needs new ideas and new visions." Wallace-Johnson was subjected to more attacks in the press; the Gold Coast Independent referred to Wallace-Johnson as a "jobless extremist" and stated that as a foreigner, he had no right to involve in Gold Coast elections. Prior to the Legislative Council elections, the biggest problem facing the WAYL and the Mambii Party was the lack of suffrage for many of their supporters. Property and literacy requirements for voting were not a problem for the elite, but they were for Thompson's supporters. To combat this deficiency, the league employed some legal and illegal practices to make sure his supporters would be able to cast their vote. In one practice, the supporters who lacked suffrage were given fraudulent town council receipts, which stated their eligibility to vote. They were also given campaign badges for the opposing candidate to avoid possible discrimination at the polls, as election officials were against the Mambii party and the WAYL. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935–1936, the WAYL seized opportunity to attack European imperialism, without the risk of sedition. With the Ex-Servicemen's Association, the WAYL established the Ethiopia Defense Committee, with the specific goal of educating the Gold Coast of the plight of the Ethiopians and on "matters of racial and national importance" once the war was over. However, soon after, the league encountered some internal conflicts. Some members of the Ex-Servicemen's Association accused Wallace-Johnson of taking some of the money raised for the Ethiopian Defense Fund. Immediately, he resigned as the fund's organiser and joint secretary. He then proved to the league that he had not handled the accounts personally, so he could not have taken any money from the fund; however, some members of the Ex-Servicemen's Association remained unconvinced. Arrest and trial By 1936, the league had established itself as a powerful force in the Gold Coast political scene. Colonial authorities and the elite class tried to find ways to get Wallace-Johnson out of local politics and possibly out of the country. Governor Arnold Weinholt Hodson wrote to the Colonial Office, asking for suggestions: By 1936, the league had established itself as a powerful force in the Gold Coast political scene. Colonial authorities and the elite class tried to find ways to get Wallace-Johnson out of local politics and possibly out of the country. Governor Arnold Weinholt Hodson wrote to the Colonial Office, asking for suggestions: While the Colonial Office discussed the possibility of deportation, Wallace-Johnson wrote an article entitled "Has the African a God?" in the African Morning Post. In the article, he condemned Christianity, European civilisation and imperialism and told Africans to go back to worshipping Ethiopia's God. On 6 June 1936, the police arrested Wallace-Johnson and Azikiwe, who had to be forced by the paper's proprietor to print the article, for sedition, in what the Negro Worker called "another dastardly plot intended to smash the Youth League". While he was imprisoned, Wallace-Johnson was told that Governor Hodson would drop the charges against him if he accepted terms for deportation. Wallace-Johnson was suspicious by this unusual gesture, so he questioned why the governor had made such a proposition. Hodson claimed that the government did not have a very good case and that they feared the influence Wallace-Johnson and the WAYL had over the populace. He finally decided to accept the proposal after the governor offered him £100. He feared that the government was going to set him up by arresting him for "fleeing justice" after his release. He told authorities to demonstrate their act of good faith by releasing his bail bondsman and providing him with a written statement that he had been freed. The government was reluctant to take such action until Azikiwe pointed out that the government had opened themselves to this dilemma with their initial deportation proposal to Wallace-Johnson. Shortly after, they agreed to £50 to Wallace-Johnson, with the promise that the rest would be paid once he arrived in England. Not all was lost for Wallace-Johnson—the publicity received by the trial helped increase WAYL membership by more than 1,500. In an anticipation of a guilty verdict, Wallace-Johnson and the WAYL began preparing for his appeal to England's Privy Council and hoped to obtain an English barrister to handle the case. The league asked their members to contribute five shillings to the appeal, but even then, the cost was far too great for the league to finance. After learning that the cost of taking a case to the Privy Council was approximately 1,000 pounds, Wallace-Johnson immediately suspected that Gold Coast authorities had known that the cost of appeal would place the league in financial ruin. Through the WAYL newspaper, the African Standard, he published a number of articles highly critical of top government officials. He was arrested on 1 September 1939 under the Emergency Act adopted at the start of World War II earlier that day. Wallace-Johnson was put on trial without a jury (who would have been sympathetic to his cause, as had been seen in previous cases against him) and received a 12-month prison sentence. He was held at Sherbro Island before being released in 1944. Appeal in London Wallace-Johnson left for London in February 1937 to appeal his case in front of the Privy Council and to also establish contacts for the WAYL. On his journey, he first stopped at Freetown to meet with a group interested in establishing a branch of the WAYL there. The Sierra Leoneans expressed genuine interest in the WAYL, but they hesitated to establish a branch there before obtaining a copy of the league's constitution. Wallace-Johnson then continued on his journey before stopping in Paris, where he contacted the International Bureau of Youth in hopes of setting up a meeting with its general secretary. However, the secretary was out of town, so Wallace-Johnson pressed on in his journey. Ward and Bridgeman sought to publicise Wallace-Johnson's objectives for colonial reform. Using a cautionary approach, the two men suggested that Wallace-Johnson seek the support of sympathetic members of Parliament, make another attempt at meeting with the general secretary of the International Bureau of Youth, and contact leaders of the youth movement in England. He immediately started working on Ward and Bridgeman's suggestions. He met with interest groups and Labour Party politicians during the day and delivered speeches at public gatherings and rallies at night. To create a lobby for the WAYL, Wallace-Johnson helped found International African Service Bureau (IASB), with several West Indian political and intellectual figures, including George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Chris Braithwaite, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta and T. Ras Makonnen. He used the new affiliation between the WAYL and the bureau to address West African problems to the British general public. The bureau, similar in design and organisation to the WAYL, intended to inform the public about the grievances faced by those in West Africa and created a list of desired reforms and freedoms that would help the colonies. The bureau also hoped to encourage new West African trade unions to affiliate themselves with the British labour movement. To further its interests, the bureau held weekly meetings at Hyde Park, where members discussed labour strikes in the Caribbean and Ethiopia. It also supplied speakers to branches of the Labour Party, trade unions and the League of Nations Union and provided questions to be asked in front of Parliament regarding legislation, working conditions and trade union regulations. During this time, the WAYL started to unravel, as no individual was capable of leading the organisation as Wallace-Johnson had. Membership declined as employers and government officials threatened members with job dismissal or physical violence. The acting organising secretary stated that it was difficult to get back these members, since they were so dependent on their employers or the government. It was reported that in some branches, only five or six members would show up at meetings. In his absence, Wallace-Johnson's political enemies spread a great deal of anti-WAYL propaganda. He wanted to return to the Gold Coast as soon as possible to resuscitate the organisation, but he lacked the necessary funds for travel. His insufficient funds also affected his work in London, but nonetheless, he pursued claims on behalf of Gold Coast citizens. Eventually, his financial situation was so poor that he couldn't afford bus fare or meals and was even evicted from his room after he failed to pay the rent. Feeling increasingly despondent about his situation, Wallace-Johnson wrote in January 1938: He decided to return to Sierra Leone, after resigning as organising secretary of the IASB after being accused of stealing money from the organisation. Bridgeman and Wallace-Johnson's other colleagues recommended that he return to West Africa only after his appeal case had been presented before the Privy Council and even offered to pay for expenses. In this period, Wallace-Johnson also contributed to Sylvia Pankhurst's pan-Africanist weekly The New Times and Ethiopia News, a paper that was susbsequently banned in Sierra Leone. ==Sierra Leone politics==

Wallace-Johnson returned to Freetown in April 1938 for what he believed would be a short visit. He planned to return to England to pack up his belongings and then move to the United States, where he would not have to "bother about Africa any more as it is apparent that the people of Africa were not prepared to make a move". He was still upset about his political experiences in the Gold Coast and even considered withdrawing from political activism entirely, but he came to realise that his homeland Sierra Leone would be a perfect breeding ground for his political ideas and philosophies. The people of Sierra Leone, mostly the Krios, had lost confidence in their leaders and British colonial authorities during the 1920s. After the Great Depression, Sierra Leone experienced a period of significant economic development and expansion. This was countered by negative industrial and social changes, which gave many working class Sierra Leoneans feelings of resentment and disappointment in the government. They were eager for change and a new face of leadership—something that Wallace-Johnson could provide. He offered the same promise for the Gold Coast, but since he was considered an outsider by many, he had limited success and many misfortunes while spreading his philosophies. {{blockquote|In no other Colony in West Africa do I find the masses in such a miserable state of economic and social disabilities. Instead of progress, after a lapse of twelve years, I find conditions within the colony rapidly declining.... As a people, we have been too lethargic, drowsy and happy-go-lucky.... A very wide margin has been provided for the foreign exploiters—capitalists and imperialists alike—to drive the wedge of divide-and-rule within our social circle: and while we keep grasping at shadows, they [the foreign invaders] are busy rapidly draining out the natural resources of the land for their personal benefits, leaving us in poverty and want.... Now is the time and now is the hour. There is only one way out of our difficulties, and that is to organise and move. Although it has always been asserted by our so-called benefactors that we should take what we get and be satisfied, I maintain as James Aggrey|[James] Aggrey did that we should not be satisfied with taking what we get or what has been given us but to use what we have been given to gain what we ought to have. West African Youth League in Sierra Leone Less than three weeks after his arrival, Wallace-Johnson opened the first branch of the WAYL in Sierra Leone. The league was an instant success and greatly exceeded Wallace-Johnson's own expectations. The league organised public gatherings, established the African Standard newspaper, founded trade unions and contested local elections. Its program included equality for women, unity for people of all tribes, co-operation between the Sierra Leone colony and protectorate, and higher wages for workers. According to , Wallace-Johnson's success with the WAYL was attributed to his "concrete militant efforts to publicize and combat the economic, political, and social dissatisfaction which by the late 1930s affected the lives of the majority of the population". Utilizing his previous experiences in the Gold Coast labour movement, Wallace-Johnson helped organise eight trade unions in Sierra Leone: the Public Works Workers' Union, the War Department Amalgamated Workers' Union, the Mabella Coaling Company Workers' Union, the King Tom Docks Workers' Union, the All Seamen's Union, the Bonthe Amalgamated Workers' Union, the Pepel and Marampa Miners Workers' Union, and the Motorists' Union. His opponents conceded that Wallace-Johnson's "considerable personal magnetism for the masses" were admirable qualities. According to , Wallace-Johnson's most important characteristic was his "truculence and his apparent willingness to thumb his nose at officialdom". In public, he spoke jokingly of colonial officials who most Sierra Leoneans feared. He casually referred to officials on a first-name basis and criticised them "in diatribes and invectives the like of which had never before been heard in the Freetown society where decorum and savoir faire were the hall-marks of the leaders". The conference was also attended by Lamina Sankoh and Harry Sawyerr representing Sierra Leone as well as other names including Hastings Banda, Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah to name a few. In 1950, Wallace-Johnson merged the WAYL into the new National Council of the Colony of Sierra Leone. However, he left the group in 1954 to found the United Sierra Leone Progressive Party. He remodelled himself as a Pan-Africanist and de-emphasised his earlier radicalism. He co-founded the United National People's Party in 1956. The UPP became the official opposition after a general election in 1957. Wallace-Johnson was a delegate to the independence talks in London. He died in a car crash in Ghana on 10 May 1965. His wife died in early 2008 in Freetown. == Notes ==