Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi III and Jesse Jackson came together in Oyo at a significant moment in the political history of the African diaspora. In late 1988 and early 1989, Jackson was travelling across Africa only months after his second campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in the United States. During that journey, he was received in Oyo and given an honorary Yoruba chieftaincy title.
The episode brought together two figures whose authority came from very different traditions. Jackson was a Baptist minister, civil rights campaigner and political organiser who had emerged as one of the most influential Black political figures in the United States. Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III was the Alaafin of Oyo, holder of a royal institution rooted in the long history of the Oyo kingdom and the wider political traditions of Yorubaland.
The encounter became part of the historical context surrounding Jet magazine’s 30 January 1989 report on Jackson’s African travels, an issue that placed his journey within a wider discussion about cooperation between Africa and the United States.
Jet Magazine and Jesse Jackson’s African Journey
The 30 January 1989 edition of Jet was published by Johnson Publishing Company as Volume 75, Number 17. The 64-page issue included an article beginning on page 12 under the headline, “After Visit to African Nations, Jesse Jackson Urges Joint Partnership.”
The headline reflected the political character of Jackson’s journey. His African travels were not simply ceremonial visits or personal tourism. They formed part of his longstanding interest in international affairs, racial justice, economic relations and the political connections between people of African descent.
Jackson entered 1989 with considerable international visibility. In 1984 he had mounted a major campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and returned for a second campaign in 1988, performing much more strongly.
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During the 1988 Democratic contest, Jackson won millions of votes and 11 state primaries and caucuses, eventually finishing second to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in the race for the nomination. His campaign demonstrated that a Black candidate could construct a broad national coalition and compete seriously for one of the most powerful political offices in the world.
It was against this background that Jackson arrived in Africa.
Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi III and Jesse Jackson in Oyo
In January 1989, Jackson’s reception in Oyo drew international attention. Reporting based on accounts from Nigeria’s Punch newspaper stated that Jackson had been made a chief in the ancient city of Oyo.
The title was reported as Atun-ayese, translated as “the man who makes the world a better place”.
The ceremony carried symbols associated with traditional recognition. Jackson was presented with a traditional staff, a calabash containing kola nuts and the symbolic akoko leaf, and he wore ceremonial attire.
The honour was conferred during the reign of Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi III, whose long tenure had already made him one of the most prominent traditional rulers in Nigeria.
Jackson used the occasion to emphasise the relationship between Africans and Black Americans. He declared: “It is not our color that makes us one, it is our common heritage.”
The statement captured an important strand of Jackson’s international politics. His African engagement was based not only on racial identity, but also on historical links created by the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, anti-colonial struggles, civil rights activism and twentieth-century Pan-African political thought.
For the Oyo palace, honouring a prominent African American leader also carried symbolic significance. The Alaafin represented one of Yorubaland’s most important traditional institutions, while Jackson represented a modern political movement shaped by the long Black freedom struggle in the United States.
The meeting therefore connected an old African royal institution with a contemporary movement for racial, political and economic justice.
Lamidi Adeyemi III and the Modern Oyo Throne
Lamidi Olayiwola Atanda Adeyemi was born in Oyo on 15 October 1938. His father, Oba Adeniran Adeyemi II, had served as Alaafin from 1945 until his deposition in 1954.
Lamidi Adeyemi eventually succeeded Oba Bello Gbadegesin Ladigbolu II. His reign began on 18 November 1970, while the formal ceremony at which he received his staff of office from the military governor of Western State took place on 14 January 1971.
From November 1970 until his death in April 2022, Adeyemi occupied the throne for approximately 51 years and five months, a reign of nearly 52 years.
His tenure crossed dramatically different periods of Nigerian history. He became Alaafin shortly after the Nigerian Civil War and remained on the throne through successive military governments, the Second Republic, the prolonged military era of the 1980s and 1990s, and more than two decades of the Fourth Republic.
By the time Jackson arrived in Oyo in 1989, Adeyemi had already been Alaafin for more than 18 years. More than three decades of his reign still lay ahead.
That longevity gives the Jackson encounter additional historical significance. What was then a meeting between two living public figures has become a window into a reign that eventually spanned more than half a century.
A Yoruba Royal Institution Meets Black American Politics
The significance of the 1989 encounter extended beyond ceremony.
The Alaafin institution is inseparable from the historical memory of Oyo, whose pre-colonial empire became one of the most powerful states in West Africa. The authority of the Alaafin developed within a political system that included royal officials, military leaders, provincial authorities and the Oyo Mesi, the council traditionally associated with major constitutional functions within the kingdom.
By the twentieth century, colonial rule and the modern Nigerian state had transformed the political powers of traditional rulers. Yet the Alaafin remained an influential cultural and traditional figure whose position carried significance far beyond Oyo town.
Jackson represented a different historical tradition. His public life emerged from the African American civil rights movement. He worked with Martin Luther King Jr and became nationally prominent through activism, political organisation and campaigns centred on racial equality, economic justice and expanded political participation.
His presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988 further transformed his international stature. The 1988 campaign in particular demonstrated the growing electoral influence of Black Americans while building alliances that stretched beyond a single racial constituency.
In Oyo, these different histories briefly occupied the same ceremonial space.
From Oyo to a Wider African Partnership
The title of Jet’s January 1989 report was revealing: “After Visit to African Nations, Jesse Jackson Urges Joint Partnership.”
Jackson’s journey belonged to a wider conversation about relationships between Africa and the United States. During the final years of the Cold War, questions surrounding apartheid in South Africa, African economic development, international debt, racial justice and the political responsibilities of the African diaspora were prominent in international debate.
Jackson had long supported opposition to apartheid and remained interested in African affairs. His engagement with the continent was therefore broader than the Oyo ceremony itself.
The chieftaincy honour nevertheless provided a striking expression of the cultural dimension of that relationship. Politics might operate through governments, elections and international institutions, but relationships between Africa and its diaspora were also expressed through ceremonies, names, historical memory and traditional institutions.
Jackson’s reception in Oyo showed how such connections could be given visible form.
The Alaafin Throne After Adeyemi
Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III died on 22 April 2022, aged 83. His death brought one of the longest modern chapters in the history of the Oyo throne to an end.
The position remained vacant until the emergence of a successor. On 5 April 2025, Oba Abimbola Owoade I was crowned the 46th Alaafin of Oyo, succeeding Adeyemi, who is recognised as the 45th Alaafin.
President Bola Tinubu subsequently received Oba Owoade at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on 16 May 2025 and addressed him as the 46th Alaafin of Oyo.
The continuity of the institution is important to understanding photographs and reports from Adeyemi’s reign. They are not merely records of an individual monarch. They belong to the longer history of a royal institution that continues to play a visible cultural and traditional role.
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In June 2026, Oba Owoade participated in the installation of the Olora of Ora in Kwara State, where he spoke about preserving Yoruba cultural values, customs and royal traditions.
Jesse Jackson’s Final Chapter
Jesse Jackson also lived long enough to see the 1989 encounter become part of a distant historical era.
He remained one of the best-known figures produced by the American civil rights movement and continued to be associated with voting rights, economic justice, international diplomacy and the political advancement of marginalised communities.
Jackson died on 17 February 2026, aged 84.
His death meant that by 2026 both men at the centre of the Oyo encounter had passed into history. Adeyemi had died almost four years earlier, while the throne he occupied had entered a new reign.
The 1989 episode consequently now belongs to the completed biographies of both men.
Conclusion
The meeting between Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi III and Jesse Jackson in 1989 was a ceremonial event whose historical meaning reached well beyond the palace occasion.
Jackson arrived in Oyo after a presidential campaign that had established him as a major force in American politics. Adeyemi received him as the occupant of one of the most historically important royal institutions in Yorubaland. Jackson’s title, Atun-ayese, expressed respect for a political figure whose career had been built around civil rights, coalition building and international engagement.
At approximately the same period, Jet magazine was documenting Jackson’s wider African journey and his call for stronger partnership between Africa and the United States.
Together, these events preserve a moment when African American political activism and Yoruba traditional authority met in Oyo. Its significance lay in recognition, heritage and the enduring effort to connect Africa with communities descended from Africans across the Atlantic.
Author’s Note
The encounter between Jesse Jackson and Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi III shows how historical relationships can be expressed through culture as powerfully as through formal politics. Jackson’s reception in Oyo brought the Black freedom struggle in the United States into contact with the enduring royal traditions of Oyo at a moment when Africa and its diaspora were exploring new forms of political, cultural and economic connection. More than three decades later, the episode remains a valuable illustration of how Yoruba institutions participated in wider conversations about African identity, international solidarity and the relationship between the continent and its global descendants.
References
Johnson Publishing Company, Jet, Vol. 75, No. 17, 30 January 1989.
Shirley Marlow, “Bush Has a Date With a Pyramid”, Los Angeles Times, 3 January 1989.
Robin Law, The Oyo Empire, c.1600–c.1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Clarendon Press, 1977.
Premium Times, “OBITUARY: Alaafin Adeyemi III and his extraordinary life of battles”, 26 April 2022.
The Guardian Nigeria, Dare Babarinsa, “For Alaafin, so long a journey”, 5 May 2022.
Channels Television, “Oba Owoade Crowned 46th Alaafin Of Oyo”, 5 April 2025.
The State House, Abuja, “President Tinubu Receives Alaafin Oyo, Seeks More Collaboration with Traditional Leaders”, 16 May 2025.
Reuters, “Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader and US presidential hopeful, dies at 84”, 17 February 2026.
The Guardian Nigeria, “Alaafin installs Ora monarch in Kwara, urges preservation of Yoruba traditions”, 3 June 2026.
