Days before the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared independence, a woman walked onto the tarmac of the Congolese airport with quick, assured steps. Her name was Andree Blouin, a known anti-colonial activist who was being deported by the Belgian government. All eyes were on her as she made her way to the plane bound for Rome. But among those watching, few knew that she had hidden, in her glamorous chignon hairdo, a damning political document that bore the signatures of Congo’s nationalist leaders. Today, 60 years after the tumultuous events that led to Congolese independence, Andree Blouin and the women who fought for African liberation are all but forgotten. But in her time, Blouin battled three colonial powers as an adviser to Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, and Guinea’s Ahmed Sekou Toure.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA