[CentOS] Python hashlib and ripemd160

Hi - I think the patent monster has struck again.

rmd = hashlib.new('ripemd160',binascii.unhexlify(someString)).hexdigest()

That fails - ValueError: unsupported hash type

 From some googling, it appears that the supported hash types are from 
OpenSSL and that means the OpenSSL in CentOS doesn't support ripemd160.

I've worked around other stuff missing from CentOS OpenSSL by building 
LibreSSL and linking against that but python is central to the operation 
of CentOS and I do not want to mess with replacing the CentOS packaging 
of python.

Is there an alternate way to get a ripemd160 hash in python on CentOS ?