ABSTRACT
The strike of African railway workers which began in October 1947 was an event of epic dimensions: it involved 20,000 workers and their families, shut down most rail traffic throughout all of French West Africa, and lasted, in most regions, for five and a half months. As if the historical event were not large enough, it has been engraved in the consciousness of West Africans and others by the novel of Ousmanne Sembene, God’s Bits of Wood. Sembene dramatizes a powerful strike effort weakened by the impersonal approach of trade unionists, by the seductions of French education, and by the greed of local elites. The strike is redeemed by its transformation into a truly popular movement dynamized by women, climaxing in a women’s march on Dakar led by someone from the margins of society and leading to a coming together of African community against the forces of colonialism.
