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Sylvia Pankhurst |
12 Oct 2005 |
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A look at the activist's life in Africa
Sylvia Pankhurst is perhaps the lesser known member of the famous suffragette family. Emily's daughter and Christabel's sister, she was a remarkable woman in her own right, a true activist who devoted herself to working class women in the East End by setting up cost price restaurants to feed poor women and children. And it was her campaigning for the vote for working class women that caused rifts within her family. Emily and Christabel didn't support universal suffrage, and because of their political differences the two sides didn't speak to each other for many years.
A fierce socialist and internationalist, she became involved in the Ethiopian cause in 1936, after the Italian invasion. She challenged the English government over the setting up of an English Protectorate, writing letters and organising meetings. In 1956, at the invitation of the Emperor Haile Selassie, she moved to Ethiopia with her son Richard and his wife Rita. And it's there - in Addis Addiba - that she's buried.
Thembi Mutch went to meet her family who still live there, and find out more about her life in Africa.
Plus Jenni speaks to Baroness Dean of Fylde about the ongoing campaign to have a memorial statue to Sylvia Pankhurst finally erected.
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