International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Kwame Nkrumah was a nationalist, African socialist leader, and anti-imperialist president of Ghana. He was among the most influential, charismatic, and controversial leaders of newly independent sub-Saharan Africa from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Kwame Nkrumah was born on September 21, 1909 in Nkroful, a fishing village in the British colony of Gold Coast, his father a blacksmith and his mother a retail trader. Nkrumah attended a Roman Catholic elementary school and Achimota College, where he graduated in 1930, after which he taught for some years in elementary schools before traveling abroad for further studies. Early exposure to politics motivated and sparked his quest for further studies. He went to the United States in 1935 and enrolled at Lincoln and Pennsylvania universities where he obtained degrees in sociology, theology, philosophy, and education. He worked briefly as an instructor and teaching assistant at Lincoln University before proceeding to London to complete his education. During a two-year stay in London, Nkrumah engaged in the anti-colonial struggle in West Africa through the West Africa National Secretariat (WANS) of the Pan-African movement. Kwame Nkrumah (1909–72), a leading pan-African and anti-colonial leader, helped end British rule over the West African colony of the Gold Coast, declaring the new country of Ghana independent on March 6, 1957. An advocate ... log in or subscribe to read full text