Adelaide Casely-Hayford, née Smith, was a Sierra Leone Creole advocate, an activist for cultural nationalism, educator, short story writer, and feminist.
Background
Adelaide Smith was born on 27 June 1868 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to a mixed-race father (William Smith Junior, of English and royal Fanti parentage) from the Gold Coast and a Creole mother, Anne Spilsbury, of English, Jamaican Maroon, and Sierra Leone Liberated African ancestry.
Education
She attended Jersey Ladies" College (now Jersey College for Girls), then at the age of 17 went to Stuttgart, Germany, to study music at the Stuttgart Conservatory.
Career
She established a school for girls in 1923 to instil cultural and racial pride during the colonial years under British rule. Promoting the preservation of Sierra Leone national identity and cultural heritage, in 1925 she wore a traditional African costume to attend a reception in honour of the Prince of Wales, where she created a sensation. East. Inspired by the ideas of racial pride and co-operation advanced by Marcus Garvey"s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), she joined the Ladies Division of the Freetown Branch.
She rose to be its president
In June 1920, she resigned from the association because of a conflict of interest between it and her proposed Girls" Vocational School. She toured the United States, giving public lectures to correct American notions about Africa.
Back in Freetown, Casely-Hayford embarked on establishing a vocational institution to help girls learn their cultural background and instil national pride. In October 1923, the Girls" Vocational School opened in the Smith family home with 14 pupils.
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 in 1960, aged 91.
Politics
Casely-Hayford opposed the injustices of the colonial system and advocated cultural nationalism, earning the respect of British authorities.