IN 2021, students at the University of Liverpool voted by a huge majority to rename Gladstone Hall, one of the halls of residence, Dorothy Kuya Hall. The wonderful irony of choosing a black Liverpudlian communist to replace the several-times prime minister of Britain speaks volumes. But who was Dorothy Kuya?
She was born on March 16 1933 in Liverpool, her mother a local woman and her father from Sierra Leone. The latter soon disappeared from their lives but her mother married a Nigerian seafarer, so young Dorothy took his name and he proved to be a loving father to her and her siblings. His influence alongside others like Ludwig Hesse, a communist seafarer from the Gold Coast, now Ghana, had a positive influence on her life.
The Kuya family lived in Liverpool 8, virtually a ghetto at that time with mainly black and mixed-heritage people suffering poor housing and constant unemployment.
