SPEAKER_00: Hey, y'all.I'm Erin Haines.I'm the editor-at-large for The 19th News, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics, and policy.I'm also the host of a brand-new weekly podcast from The 19th News and Wonder Media Network called The Amendment.Each week, we're bringing you a conversation about gender, politics, and the unfinished work of American democracy. Our very first episode features my dear friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Nicole Hannah-Jones.It's out now, so please go listen and follow the show.On top of all of this, I'm your guest host for this month of Womanica.This Black History Month, we're talking about revolutionaries, the Black women who led struggles for liberation from violent governments, colonial rulers, and enslavers. these women had the courage to imagine radically different worlds, and they used their power to try and pull those worlds into view.
Today, we're talking about one of the most important figures in the struggle for a free Tanzania.Her understanding of women's roles enabled a national movement to take hold across ethnic lines, garnering incredible support with her voice alone.Please welcome Bibi Titi Mohamed. Bibi was born in 1926 in Dar es Salaam, then the capital of Tanganyika.This was the colonial territory of East Africa under British rule.Bibi's father was a businessman, her mother a farmer and housewife.Like many other young Muslim girls in the city, she attended school until she reached puberty, then remained indoors to stay out of sight of strangers.When she was 14 years old, she was married to a 40-year-old mechanic. It was common for parents to arrange their daughters' marriages, but Bibi's didn't last.They divorced after having her first child.
Bibi later remarried for love.Around the time Bibi entered her 30s, she started hearing about the Tanganyika African National Union, or TANU for short.It was a political party fighting for Tanzanian independence. Bibi wasn't immediately drawn into politics.It was difficult for women to get much of a foothold there, but she was certainly active in her community.She took part in ngoma, a cultural dancing and musical group.She performed at weddings, festivals, and helped organize burials and holiday celebrations.In 1955, Bibi got a bit more involved in TANU, though not exactly by choice. That year, a delegation from the UK visited Dar es Salaam to meet with the party.They asked to meet with the head of the women's section.
TANU officials quickly agreed, and then hurried home to figure out how to create a women's section.Overnight.As Bibi herself recounted, they didn't have a woman then.Everyone had locked their wives away.The most important factor, of course, was finding a leader for the women's section.There was a clear answer. a prominent member of the community, a leader of women's work in Ngoma, and conveniently, the wife of one of the TANU organizers' friends, Bibi Titi.The next day, Bibi attended the conference with British officials as the leader of the TANU women's section.She was a natural, and from then on, served as the official head of the women's section of the TANU. Bibi became a political powerhouse using the tool she knew so well, ngoma.
She spoke with leaders of other ngoma groups, where women already gathered regularly.These groups were open to all women, across different ethnic groups.They posed the perfect opportunity for women to join forces, engage in conversation, and lay the groundwork for mobilization. Not only were these groups powerful meeting points for women, they were seen as unthreatening by men, and especially by British colonial officials.They remained unaware of the independence movements brewing in these women's groups.Over the next few months, Bibi enrolled more than 5,000 women as TANU members.In the process, she shook off preconceived ideas of how Muslim women were supposed to act in politics. Bibi made her stance known, recruiting women door-to-door and holding speeches, practically unheard of in a society where so many women spent most of their time indoors.She encouraged women to join the movement by calling on the power of birth.She said in one speech, We have given birth to all these men.
Women are the power in this world.I am telling you that we have to join the party first. In 1961, Tanganyika gained its independence.Bibi stood next to its first president as independence was declared, and she took on a leadership role in the Union of Women of Tanganyika, or UWT, the Women's Alliance.In 1964, Tannu's constitution specifically carved out the role of women in its party.Women would be entitled to all membership rights, and every party branch would have a women's wing. Women had been at the forefront of Tanzanian independence, and Bibi their leader.But in 1965, she lost her parliamentary seat in the government.Two years later, she resigned from her position on the party's central committee.Bibi was a revolutionary, but she was still a woman with little education and little career, and the government wasn't offering much in the way of financial aid.
She'd been renting out properties to gain a steady income, and the president's plan for socialism banned Central Committee employees from renting.As a result, Beebe was convicted for alleged participation in a plot to overthrow his government.She spent two years in prison before he commuted her life sentence. She remained mainly out of the public sphere after her release.But BBTT's role in Tanzanian independence is undeniable, especially in the mobilization of women as a strong, united front for the nation.She died on November 5, 2000, in Johannesburg. All month, we're talking about revolutionaries.For more information, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast.Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for having me as a guest host.Talk to you tomorrow.
