Ali Abdel Latif

Ali Abd al-Latif was born in 1896 in Wadi Halfa to former slave parents of Dinka and Nuba origin. Graduating from the Gordon Memorial College military academy in 1914, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Egyptian Army in Sudan.

In 1922, Latif published a revolutionary article entitled 'The Claims of the Sudanese Nation', demanding self-determination and the end of British condominium rule, for which he was imprisoned. In 1924, he co-founded the White Flag League, mobilizing civil servants, students, and workers in mass street demonstrations and leading the historic November 1924 military revolt. Arrested and subjected to decades of harsh confinement in Cairo, he is commemorated as the foundational pioneer of non-sectarian Sudanese nationalism.