Joseph Ouédraogo was born on 11 January 1919 in Saaba, French West Africa.
From 1929 to 1933 he received his primary education at the Catholic Mission School of Ouagadougou and before undertaking Secondary studies at the Pabré Undergraduate Seminary from 1933 to 1939.
[1] Ouédraogo became a Catholic labor activist and was a member of the Voltaic Union after World War II.
Ouédraogo was a leader of the syndicalist general strike and 1966 military coup against Yaméogo.
In the early 1970s Ouédraogo and Gérard Ouédraogo (unrelated) were rival leaders of the Union démocratique voltaïque (UDV): an agreement that Gérard would serve as prime minister and Joseph as president of the National Assembly broke down in 1974, and in February 1974 the army stepped in to suspend the 1970 constitution and restore military rule.