IT’S THE 5TH OF MARCH 1957. The sun rises and shines its light on the country known as “The Gold Coast.” In less than 24 hours, the Gold Coast will receive a new name. As midnight beckons and the 6th of March approaches, Kwame Nkrumah will step up to a podium to hold the first speech of a new independent nation. Ghana has gained independence from the United Kingdom. On this stage, facing a bustling square filled with hope and optimism, Kwame Nkrumah will proclaim that the battle has at long last ended, and Ghana is now free forever.
Reaching all the way to this Independence Day was no easy feat and a path riddled with challenges. Kwame Nkrumah managed to get past them all.
Kwame was born on the 21st of September 1909 into an unassuming family. His mother was a retail trader, and his father a goldsmith, which meant the Nkrumah home had no wealth worth speaking of, but there was food on the table more often than not. Despite his humble background, it was clear that Kwame was a very talented young man. His family managed to scrape together enough money for him to go to the US, where he could study at Lincoln University. During his 10 years on the other side of the Atlantic, he would face new kinds of racism that he hadn’t seen before.
This would be the initial embers hinting at the fire that was to grow in the future. After these ten years, Kwame would once again take the arduous journey all the way to London, where his political engagement would see its first steps. Instead of continuing his studies as planned, he engages in discussion forums about Pan-Africanism and independence. He felt his mission was clear: to go home to the Gold Coast and liberate his fellow countrymen from the United Kingdom.
“Reaching all the way to this Independence Day was no easy feat and a path riddled with challenges. Kwame Nkrumah managed to get past them all.”
It is now November 1947, and a cold night in Liverpool. Kwame gets on another ship bringing him to new horizons, this time a job at the political party UGCC (United Gold Coast Convention). A party that was campaigning for self-governance but not particularly interested in sovereignty.
Kwame goes to work with his new party and gets a great reception from his coworkers when the so-called “Accra riots” suddenly occur. A violent wave of demonstrations, uproar, and general upheaval of everyday life in Accra, with rioting, looting, and killing taking place. The United Kingdom pins the blame on the UGCC, and thus, Kwame finds himself imprisoned along with his party associates. An ironic step backward from hopes of liberty into a reality of imprisonment for Kwame.
Kwame’s time in prison was not long; shortly after being released, he would start his own political party—the Convention People’s Party (CPP). In 1951, the CCP was elected as the leading party of the Gold Coast in a landslide victory. 6 years later, the independence would be at their doorstep. After the 6th of March 1957, Kwame Nkrumah became Ghana’s first prime minister and president – the new country born out of the ashes of the Gold Coast.
During his time as head of government, Kwame would see to it that education in Ghana was reformed, their industries improved, their export increased rapidly, as well as fierce campaigning for Pan-Africanism. Kwame played a part in creating a plethora of new international organizations working towards greater African cooperation. The All-African Peoples’ Conference, the All-African Trade Union Federation, and The Positive Action and Security in Africa Conference, to name a few. It seemed the world was developing just how Kwame had envisioned. Kwame was truly at the forefront of advocacy for African independence, a memory that lives on today in the continent. His message and actions live in the continent’s memory, inspiring other territories under colonial rule. He showed them it was possible to break free from their colonizers through peaceful means, something few had achieved before him.
But behind a facade ever so bright, a looming shadow was growing larger. As investment in the public sector grew larger, the remaining funds grew smaller. Kwame opted to increase the nation’s loans to combat the diminishing assets. Despite their debt growing bigger by the minute, Kwame was still held high in the eyes of the people. You would find Kwame’s face on stamps; his birthday became a national holiday, and a statue in his likeness was erected outside the parliament. The cult of personality around Kwame was in full bloom, and his public opinion never seemed to have been higher. This would soon be subject to change.
The first ripple on the status quo came in August 1962. On his way home from a meeting with the president of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), while passing the town Bawku, Kwame decided to stop and greet some schoolchildren waving at him from the road. Kwame stepped out, and the cheerful mood was ruptured by the deafening sound of a bomb going off. Kwame’s bodyguard managed to save his life, but this event would set its mark on Kwame for the rest of his time in Ghana. Kwame’s paranoia had now begun.
“You would find Kwame’s face on stamps; his birthday became a national holiday, and a statue in his likeness was erected outside the parliament. The cult of personality around Kwame was in full bloom, and his public opinion never seemed to have been higher.”
Kwame strengthened his hold on political power in Ghana in the following years. Individuals considered threats to Ghanaian society were immediately thrown behind bars without facing a trial, and any opposition trying to voice their concerns was silenced through censorship of the media. The consolidation of power in Kwame’s party’s hands would peak in 1964 when a constitutional amendment was proposed, one that would make CPP the only legal party in the nation. A so-called “public vote” was held where 99.91% of the votes were in favor, internationally deemed an obviously rigged election. Ghana had become a one-party state, a dictatorship born out of the democratic independence that brought the CPP to power in the first place.
2 years went by, and Ghana was still firmly under dictatorship rule. War was raging in Vietnam, and Kwame had decided to try and persuade Northern Vietnam into striking a peace accord with the USA. Kwame departed on the 21st of February, 1966. This would be the last time he ever saw his home country. Before his plane had landed, he would receive news of the military coup d’état that was taking place at this very moment, and he knew it was already too late. After finding exile in Guinea, he tried to orchestrate a possible return for himself and his party. This would prove to be a futile task. Under a massive amount of stress for years, Kwame found himself falling ill. He was flown out to Romania in 1972 in the hopes of receiving medical care to keep him alive but to no avail. Kwame left this life on the 27th of April 1972 in Bucharest, Romania, at age 62—a life that had reached such heights and, in the end, fallen so far.
