Invitation to Sọ̀rọ̀sókè

[Adewunmi, Tobi]

Sọ̀rọ̀sókè, verb

To sọ̀rọ̀sókè in Yoruba means “to speak up” - but it is not merely about making noise. It is a call to conscience, an insistence on being heard in a system that so often mutes the voices of the vulnerable. 

Historically, the word has echoed through marketplaces, family gatherings, and community fora, urging truthfulness and bold expression. But in October 2020, it became animated through the popular struggles of Nigerian youth who transformed sọ̀rọ̀sókè into the language of resistance.

The #EndSARS movement began as a protest against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious police unit implicated in abuses of power, violence, and extortion. What followed was one of the most significant youth-led movements in contemporary African history—decentralized, digitally organized, emotionally charged, and global in its reach and appeal. The cry of sọ̀rọ̀sókè became more than a hashtag. It was a cultural moment, a generational pivot, a bold refusal to endure injustice in silence.

But sọ̀rọ̀sókè is not just another story of how the subaltern speaks. It speaks to a broader history of emancipatory movements—where language, art, and collective action become tools for challenging entrenched power. From Soweto to Ferguson, from Chile’s student uprisings to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, the call to “speak up” is universal. It reminds us that speech is never neutral; it is political, historical, and revolutionary.

In an era where international student organizers and activists in the United States are brutalized, incarcerated or deported for standing up to hegemonic regimes and epistemes of thought, sọ̀rọ̀sókè invites us to think historically, politically, and transnationally about what it means to speak up today!

What can student movements, faculty, and global solidarity networks in the United States and beyond learn from materialities and demands of #EndSARS? How do we carry its lessons beyond Nigeria—to classrooms, organizing spaces, and public squares in the United States?

Join the Social Movements Reading Group as we explore the poetics and pragmatics of resistance through two powerful texts: Sọ̀rọ̀sókè: An #EndSARS Anthology, edited by Jumoke Verissimo and James Yeku, where carefully curated lyrics and stanzas caress, refresh and jolt readers to the promise and perils of protests, and Trish Lorenz’s Soro Soke: The Young Disruptors of an African Megacity, which chronicles the courage and clarity of Nigeria’s youth demographic.

Come read, reflect, and sọ̀rọ̀sókè. Because silence, too, is political!


Topic: #EndSARS and the Rest of Us: Lessons from the #EndSARS Movement in Nigeria

Date: Monday, April 14, 2025

Time: 5:00 PM CST/11:00 PM WAT

Location: 809 S 5th St., Champaign, IL (GEO Office in McKinley Foundation) / Online (see Zoom link below)

Access the books via: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MMXYdeOQZZWm5CwbeLeBNSs5oGPSnzoP

Join virtually via: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/82795201604?pwd=RfD2URBIIboCVnPSpHoxtTbDMD9jhQ.1


This colloquium is organized by the Social Movements Reading Group, in partnership with Humanities Research Institute and the Graduate Employers Organization at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

'TOBI DANIEL ADEWUNMI

Teaching Assistant for AFRO 101 (Black America, 1619 to Present)

Candidate in African Studies (with a Pre-JD designation)

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Center for African Studies & Department of African American Studies

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217.904.5418|od...@illinois.edu

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