Zizwe Poe, Lincoln University

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, A Lincoln University Alumnus:
His Profound Impact on Pan-African Agency

By Zizwe Poe, Lincoln University

Africa, the birthplace of humanity and probably the richest continent in terms of minerals, is also the home of the world’s poorest populations. This poverty is a direct response to the continent’s unfavorable role in a world order dominated by Western European nations and the United States of America (USA). In fact, a large part of the wealth that accrued in these societies resulted from their imperial roles vis-à-vis Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Labor and material wealth were spirited from Africa for half of a millennium to sponsor the development of Europe and the USA. During the last half of the twentieth century, however, Africans went through profound changes that enabled them to loosen the yoke of classical colonialism. While there were a myriad of key personalities and organizations that put the mass of African subjects and well wishers on the path to political independence, some names shine brighter than others.

As the twentieth century came to a close, there was a great deal of speculation as to who were the trailblazers of the era. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in particular polled its listeners in Africa as to whom they considered the person of the millennium. In December of 1999, these listeners picked Kwame Nkrumah (1909 – 1972) as their “Man of the Millennium.” The BBC waited until September of 2000 to announce this result in its BBC World Service. The lateness of the announcement is not surprising, given the nemesis relationship that evolved between Ghana’s first president and its previous colonial master, Great Britain. Against the backdrop of that relationship the BBC spent little time and space in explaining why Nkrumah was elected but chose to highlight Nkrumah’s “authoritarian” style and coup d’ etat that toppled his Ghanaian government. The British, USA, French, and Israeli secret services have been implicated by various sources in the orchestration of that police and military usurpation of civilian authority in 1966. The governments of those secret services expressed no dismay at the overthrow of Nkrumah; quite to the contrary, they exclaimed that a period of dictatorship had come to an end (Stockwell, 1992). This article is an effort to explain why Nkrumah meant so much to so many.

It is apropos to survey the unique accomplishments of Nkrumah in a journal housed at the institution where Nkrumah received his first higher education degree. In some sense, Lincoln University and its milieu had something to do with Nkrumah’s ideological development and commitment to African redemption. In hindsight, Lincoln served as a haven for a number of West-African nationalists that would play active roles in destabilizing the British control of its African colonies.

One must be aware, however, that Lincoln University did not officially nor intentionally support the African Liberation Movement at the time of Nkrumah’s matriculation. This was not yet the Lincoln University administration of Horace Mann Bond, its first president of African descent. President Bond, who served as Lincoln University’s president from 1945 to 1957 would attend Ghana’s independence celebration and even participate in the “radical” All-African People’s Conference under Nkrumah’s leadership. Bond represented an administration of a different hue and time, both of which probably led to his departure from Lincoln University.

Nkrumah as well as Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1996) before him had to deal with the paternalistic administrations of a Eurocentric university and Eurocentric philanthropists of the Phelps-Stokes fund. These organizations were conservative and saw no value in African nationalism or African authentic traditions. As a matter of fact, the tenacious clinging to African cultural ways on one occasion caused strife between Nkrumah and the Lincoln University administration.

A particular case surfaced during 1943 after a memorial service for the revered Dr. Kwegyr Aggrey, an early mentor of Nkrumah who had been educated in the USA and taught in the Gold Coast colony (the name given to that part of Africa [now known as Ghana] by European colonizers). It was reported in a few periodicals that Nkrumah had poured libations, said prayers in Fanti, and cut a piece of sod to be sent back to Aggrey’s ancestral home to be buried. When news of this action reached Lincoln University, it greatly disturbed Lincoln’s President Wright and Seminary Dean Johnson. The latter “admonished Nkrumah for conducting an ‘Animist Service without Christian significance and contradictory to Christian teaching’” (Sherwood, 1996:97). The dean and president were particularly perturbed by the fact that Nkrumah had received his licentiate to preach with the support of Lincoln University. Nkrumah, who had already graduated by this time, notified the dean that though he intended to reflect the best of Christianity that he would not do so blindly and that he also intended to reflect the best of his people.

Nevertheless, the Lincoln University atmosphere provided Nkrumah with better opportunities to organize African students than would have been available had he matriculated at one of the British institutions. Azikiwe, who had graduated and taught Lincoln’s first African History courses, advised Nkrumah about the Lincoln University social environment in particular and the racism in the USA in general. Regardless of these challenges, however, the USA was not the colonial master of the Gold Coast and was therefore seen to offer exciting opportunities. Besides that, this same USA had fought against British imperialism and had no traditional African colony to speak of except Liberia, which was semi-autonomous.

Perhaps, had Lincoln University known of Nkrumah’s leaning toward West African nationalism prior to his departure from the Gold Coast colony, the school might not have accepted his application for admission. Well aware of the general European mindset toward Africa, Nkrumah slyly quoted Cecil B. Rhodes – the icon of European imperialism in Africa at that time – in his application to Lincoln University (Sherwood, after p. 24).

While at Lincoln University, Nkrumah participated in a number of organizations including Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, the Fireside Club, the Philosophy and Science Clubs (Sherwood, 32). The most important organization that Nkrumah participated in while in the USA was undoubtedly the African Students’ Association (ASA), which was later to provide significant exposure to others interested in the budding African independence movement. The organization produced an organ known as the African Interpreter (Sherwood, 1996).

Nkrumah was in the USA from 1935 to 1945 and participated in many activities around Africa’s redemption. It was during this time that Nkrumah would meet and work with a number of Pan-African nationalists living in the USA. The connections made at Lincoln University, Howard University (which Nkrumah frequented), the University of Pennsylvania (where Nkrumah did graduate work and taught African languages), and in the cities of Philadelphia and New York would all come in handy in the years to come.

From 1945 to 1947, Nkrumah would continue to organize and make connections throughout Western Europe. He arrived in time to work closely with George Padmore and Ras T. Makonnen in putting on the famous Manchester Pan-African Conference of 1945. For these two years, Nkrumah’s organizational work proved to be an essential boon to his later activities in the Gold Coast colony. In 1947, he was invited by the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) to help form the organization into a functional body. The invitation extended to Nkrumah came at the suggestion of Ako Adjei, then a member of the UGCC and Nkrumah’s former classmate. Nkrumah accepted the position as a stepping-stone to the building of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1949.

The CPP was more impatient with colonialism than the UGCC. Nkrumah, with the CPP as his instrument, led the Gold Coast Colony to independence as Ghana in 1957. Nkrumah became Ghana’s first Head of Government Business, then Prime Minister and finally President when Ghana became a republic in 1960. It was from these positions of power that Nkrumah made positive impact on African Nationalism.

A profound impact was made by Kwame Nkrumah on Pan-Africanism from 1945 to 1966. To review this impact one has to examine currently used definitions in relation to an awareness of African centeredness explicated in the concept of a Pan-African movement. For Nkrumah, following in the path of those who educated him in West Africa, the immediate optimal level was that of West Africa. He would later amend his thought and advocate against a “regional first” approach. His conclusion from his experience was that the optimal level of African nationalism was a continental socialist union government. The influence of Garvey as well as his educational experience in the USA and England helped to expand Nkrumah’s vision on a united Africa and its descended populations.

Nkrumah’s participation in the 1945 Manchester Congress elevated his stature to the inner-circle of Pan-African activists. It was from this point that Nkrumah vanguarded the Pan-African nationalist movement. Two years after that famous congress, Nkrumah was involved in liberating the Gold Coast colony from where he later assisted with the prosecution of the Pan-African Nationalist Movement. The African Unity Movement (AUM) eventually distinguished itself from nationalists concerned solely with liberation in their territory. This latter force opposed Nkrumah’s efforts.

For Nkrumah, Pan-African Nationalism required liberated territories organized along socialist lines for a population growing in the awareness of Pan-Africanism. To Nkrumah that awareness had to be formatted with an ideology of African revolution. Those who worked with Nkrumah would later come to name that ideology “Nkrumahism.” Nkrumah did not wait for the official naming of the ideology before beginning his campaign of massive political education. From his return to the Gold Coast colony in 1947 until his overthrow in 1966, Nkrumah used all media available to him to impress the need for a totally liberated and unified socialist Africa on all who would listen or read his messages.

Nkrumah strategically set out to organize women and youth as key sectors in the battle to radically transform the African socio-political landscape. He also paid meticulous attention to reconstructing the institutions of higher learning within Ghana, for it was these institutions that would ensure the methodical dissemination of Nkrumahism: the ideology of the “African Personality”.

Nkrumah was not the first to use the words, “African Personality” but he was the first in modern times to give that concept the resources of an official government. He completed some of the aspects of Marcus Garvey’s program and some of Garvey’s symbols became part of everyday Ghana. The most famous of these symbols was the Black Star, which Nkrumah attached to his shipping lines and a public square in Accra. His most important contribution to the memory of Garvey was his organization of millions of Africans toward the redemption of African glory. In this way Nkrumah became the conduit of Pan-African movement, which was apparent in Garvey and others like DuBois. The efforts of both, however, required synthesis, and at that, Nkrumah was extraordinary.

Synthesis became a major theme in Nkrumah’s quest to enthrone the agents of Pan-African nationalism. Nkrumah used this approach both to remove the presence of the British Empire from Ghana and to unite African peoples with themselves and their cultural experiences. Nkrumah advocated a philosophy that sought to harmonize the materiality of the world and the spirituality of humanity. Nkrumah also sought to harmonize the Christian and Islamic impacts with the traditional African cultural base. He also advocated certain ethical principles, which he claimed were African at root and which urged African societies along the path of socialist development. Finally, Nkrumah demanded an Afrocentric approach to the study of African phenomenon. He saw knowledge as a conditioner of purposeful practice.

Some of Nkrumah’s admonishments were made at earlier times, but only Nkrumah could claim to have had the opportunity to implement what to others remained dreams and declarations.

In that light, six major points can serve as a summary of Nkrumah’s contribution to the Pan-African movement from 1945 to 1966. They are as follows:

Nkrumah linked the traditions of West African nationalism and Pan-African nationalism.
Nkrumah initiated and developed the first Pan-African liberated state in modern history.
Nkrumah elevated Pan-African movement to the level of nation-states.
Nkrumah developed the notion of socialist African union as the optimal zone for the African personality, genius.
Nkrumah offered a formal philosophy to defend the ideology of the African Revolution.
Nkrumah initiated the first African state sponsored effort for Afrocentric research.

These points will be examined more closely.

Nkrumah Linked Traditions of West African Nationalism and Pan-

African Nationalism

Nkrumah was impressed by the events that preceded him. Ethiopia, a beacon for the Pan-African movement since the Battle of Adowa in 1896, also became his beacon. He would later interact with its Emperor and encourage him to advance the Ethiopian state into an icon of African unity. At the same time, Nkrumah made Ghana the beacon of Pan-African nationalism.

The impact of Nkrumah’s earlier political educators gave him a base from which to operate as he explored and discovered the world of Africans outside of Africa. Nkrumah became familiar with Harlem, London, Philadelphia and other places; yet he never forgot the memories and connections he forged in Accra, Axim, and Nzimaland. He organized at every location that he found himself and pushed unity as a principle.

The power of synthesis was both Nkrumah’s opportunity and tool. He was the right person in the right place at the right time. He was in the USA and London when Pan-African stirrings were on the rise. He had the opportunity to participate in two conferences in which DuBois and Amy Ashwood Garvey were to participate. He had the opportunity to befriend and cooperate with the likes of George Padmore and Ras T. Makonnen. Finally, he was given the opportunity to return to the Gold Coast colony with an “agential” position to mobilize for Pan-African objectives. It was there that the synthesis of his experiences strengthened his hand.

He used his voice and printers ink as weapons to etch an awareness of Pan-Africanism on an already nationalistic Ghanaian population. He used all of the oratorical skills that he accumulated in New York, Philadelphia, London, Manchester, Washington DC, and Axim to propagate the cause of Pan-African nationalism. The overwhelming majority of Africans residing in the Gold Coast colony, for the time in which they accepted Nkrumah as their leader, merged their nationalist interest with that of Pan-African nationalism. Ghanaian nationalism was actually the progeny of Pan-African nationalism for the former without the latter was fragile and prone to attack from irredentist identities.

Nkrumah Initiated and Developed the First Pan-African Liberated State in Modern History

For a considerable amount of time Ethiopia, and, to lesser extents, Haiti and Liberia stood as the independent zones of Pan-African support. Liberia, which was approached by Garvey and DuBois, satisfied neither of them. The ideological baggage that accompanied the Americocentric location of the Liberian ruling elite restricted its Pan-African agency. Haiti had its period of militancy, but it was geographically far from the motherland. Ethiopia was in the motherland but ruled by a monarch still in the tradition of an enlightened African feudalism. Ethiopia’s agency was in such disarray in 1935 that Garvey publicly expressed on his disappointment with the emperor, Haile Selasie’s response to Italian aggression. Nkrumah, however, was cut from a different cultural cloth than the emperor.

Even before independence, Nkrumah began to use the offices of the Gold Coast state to improve the lives of Ghanaian residents by raising their education and skill levels. Upon Ghana’s formal independence, Nkrumah began to use Ghana’s treasury to support the African Revolution throughout the world. Ghana became the ‘Mecca’ of African revolutionaries as well as to others committed to liberation from colonialism and neo-colonialism. Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Ho Chi Minh were affiliated with Nkrumah around this time. Ghana became known through the speeches of Malcolm X as the “fountainhead of Pan-Africanism” (Breitman 1965, 62).

A liberated zone by definition is a zone from which to launch and support liberation. It is not merely a state of being; it is a character or a state of doing. Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence only meaningful if it was involved in liberating and uniting Africa (Nkrumah, 1970a, 1973a). Some may have taken his statement as merely exciting rabble but Nkrumah showed his concrete support of the liberation movements and newly independent states. The following quote from his one-time confidant, Adamafio, throws light on Nkrumah’s attitude:

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah regarded himself as an African first before he was anything else. Early after the inauguration of the Republic he called me to his office one morning and suggested that we should create a Ministry of African Affairs. We discussed the problem seriously and I refused to give the proposal my support. I argued that this would duplicate the work of the Foreign Ministry and cost the country money that could be wisely saved for other purposes. Nkrumah stressed that he did not like the idea of treating affairs of other African countries as ‘Foreign Affairs’. He said Africa was one and indivisible and no part of it should be foreign to any other part. (Adamafio, 1982; 94-95)

Nkrumah’s sponsorship of the first All-African People’s Conference in 1959 was a case in point. This meeting etched Ghana and Nkrumah into the history of African Liberation and African Unity. Padmore, Nkrumah’s advisor on African Affairs and long- time comrade, was the Secretary-General of the preparatory committee (Thompson, W. S. 1969). The committee comprised representatives of Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Somaliland (Esedebe 1982). Padmore also became the Secretary-General of the permanent secretariat constructed as a result of the conference (Wallerstein 1967). Ghana contributed close to £30,000 toward the effort. Nkrumah attended the conference as the head of the CPP as opposed to being the head of a state. His style, charisma, and intense commitment to the conference endeared him to many of the liberators to him. He would be remembered by them for his devotion and assistance. (Thompson, W. S. 1969).

Revealing a partial list of the participants in attendance will show the impact of Ghana’s sponsored conference for All-African People. Many future-leading organizations utilized the meeting to share information and seek concrete aid from the independent states through the machinery provided by the newly liberated Ghana. Some of the important participants from outside of Ghana that participated in this conference included Frantz Fanon and four other comrades from Algeria: Patrice Lumumba from the Congo; Felix Moumie from Cameroon, Ntau Mkhehle from Basutoland, Roberto Holden from Angola, Tom Mboya and Peter Mbiyu Koinage from Kenya, Julius Nyerere from Tanganyika, Kenneth Kaunda from Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), Joshua Nkomo from Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), Kamuzu Banda from Nyasaland, and John Kale from Uganda. Notable participants from outside of Africa included Lincoln University’s first African-descended president, Horace Bond, and journalist Dr. Marguerite Cartwright, also an African descendant residing in the USA. Shirley Graham DuBois read a historic message from her husband at the conference in which he advised all present to put their African identity and unity above their local and parochial identities. Though there were states independent in Africa before Ghana, it had not dawned on them that they should come together in a larger collective for their greater good. This was left to Nkrumah and his empowered circle of Pan-Africanists to attempt to accomplish.

Nkrumah’s commitment to the Pan-African movement was clearly unparalleled by any other African head of state. Nkrumah knew that his position, though desirable, was not popular among African leaders of the day. Even his party, the Convention People’s Party (CPP), was resistant. As a precaution Nkrumah built a shadow cabinet that was responsible for the work of uniting Africa. To accomplish this work, he created the necessary structural amendments to his government and brought in his comrades from his organizing days in Europe and gave them special appointments and also a budget to do their work. One of these comrades, George Padmore, was critically instrumental in setting up the First Congress of Independent African States. He was not the only significant comrade from the days of the Fifth Pan-African Congress to be involved. There were others, but the other two that deserve special mention were Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, who came to Ghana and was assigned to work on the Encyclopedia Africana, and T. R. Makonnen, who was responsible for assisting with the organization Freedom Fighters Conference and the camps of freedom fighters that trained in Ghana.

Under their charge Ghana organized conferences, sponsored scholarships and provided training to freedom fighters. Many of the future leaders of Africa met each other in Ghana while training to liberate their territory from imperialism. Tanzania, whose president had attended Pan-African assemblies in Ghana, would later build a base for Africans to launch liberation struggle into the southern part of the continent.

Egypt was a militant liberated zone but was not dedicated to Pan-Africanism at its independence. It came to this position later because of its cooperation with Nkrumah’s Ghana and Touré’s Guinea. The struggle that Algeria went through to achieve its independence undoubtedly added a magnetic pull to Egypt’s connection to the African Liberation Movement. Egypt’s involvement with the debacle in the Congo during the days of Patrice Lumumba also drew it closer to the African fold.

Nkrumah Elevated Pan-Africanism to the Level of Nation States

Nkrumah visited Liberia on his return trip home to the Gold Coast colony after being away from Africa for twelve years. He had just spent two intense years in Europe organizing a variety of Pan-African forums and nationalist organizations. This trip was an exploratory one as well as one designed to construct fruitful communication links. Nkrumah was to learn much from these activities. Mindful of his first visit to Liberia and the cold shoulder shown him by those who only recognized state power, Nkrumah understood that state power was a strong instrument for achieving national goals. Later, after becoming the Leader of Government for the Gold Coast colony, Nkrumah was received with state honors in Liberia. He recognized the profound distinction accorded him. His words received more attention in this visit than in the visit he made during his earlier party-building days. He was also cognizant of Liberia’s ability to marshal resources, although the resources were meager.

There were other states that were independent prior to Ghana. It was Ghana, however, that initiated the state supported effort to achieve rapid independence throughout the African continent. Some of the other states had been preoccupied with identities adopted from earlier eras and earlier empires. The closest to a Pan-African liberated zone during this time was Egypt, but a primary Arabic identity blurred its vision to the potential of a Pan-African nation. This was Nkrumah’s only published criticism of Nasser (Nkrumah, 1990). Nevertheless, Nasser’s speeches (Nasser, n.d.) show his change in terminology and identification with his southern compatriots over time.

With Nasser, thus with Egypt, Nkrumah was a unifier. In Nasser’s earlier writings, he referred to the African continent as the “second circle,” following the Arab circle. For Nasser Egypt could not “stand aloof for one important reason – we ourselves are in Africa” (Nasser n.d., 3). Though in Africa, Nasser considered himself not primarily African but Arab. His synthesis of African and Arab in this area came a little later as he conflicted with the “lighter” Northeastern Arabs and as his relationship with Africa intensified. Liberated Ghana reached out to the independent states, and Nasser became an important friend and brother to Nkrumah. Nasser’s location shifts can be seen by his public pronouncements. As late as January 1958 Nasser was expressing condescending paternal comments on African people. In a press interview with American reporters that month, Nasser told them that the Africans were changing a great deal from their past primitiveness because of modern communications. He said that they were learning about liberation and democracy. Nasser, like many others, had seen Africans through eyes that could not recognize African place in world civilization. Nkrumah’s Ghana changed that image of the African.

On 21 June 1958 Nasser responded to an earlier address made by visiting Prime Minister Nkrumah saying, “Today, when we meet as two African countries, representing free Africa, we look to the future so that Africa may attain this strong independent personality” (Nasser, n.d. 10). By 28 July 1963 Nasser would say,

During long years, we were kept isolated from Africa; colonialism prevented us, separated us from unity with Africa; and today, we find our brothers extending their hands to us and we are increasing our knowledge about Africa. . . . The universities are our vanguard in this field; they can make the researches and give us the correct results, the sound solution for an African solidarity, for tightening the relations between the United Arab Republic and African countries. We shall no long rely only on books written by foreigners which may contain distorted informations [sic] misleading dissertations. (Ibid., 56)

Nasser deepened his relation with Nkrumah early after the First Conference of Independent African States (CIAS), and Nkrumah married Fathia Rizk, a Coptic Egyptian, with Nasser’s blessings. Though metaphoric, future historians will point to the marriage of Nkrumah and Rizk as a merging of Ghana and Egypt as well as a linking of Africa across the Sahara, across the sands of time, and across periods of classical greatness.

Nkrumah’s impact on Sékou Touré and Guinea is mentioned throughout the literature on the subject of Pan-Africanism. These two statesmen reflected a unity that was unparalleled. The impact was bi-directional as Touré was a staunch fighter for African freedom, though not as well versed on its unity as Nkrumah. Nkrumah befriended Touré early, cementing their unity in concrete state-to-state activities. Nkrumah found that reaching out to organizations and their leaders before they won state control made their commitment to an African Union easier to come by. He noticed that if he waited until they became official governments, their approach toward continental unity became gradual.

European and American imperialism also displayed a high aptitude toward this fact. They often countered state level Pan-Africanism by enticing new states to make bi-lateral pacts with former colonial partners. While Nkrumah was able to influence the older independent states and some novices, notably Guinea, Mali, Algeria, and the Congo under Lumumba, his resources could not match those of the European Empire. That empire supported opposition forces inside the African Unity Movement (AUM) and inside Ghana.

When the Opposition overthrew Nkrumah, Touré publicly announced him as the head of the state of Guinea (Nkrumah 1990). Nkrumah was honored and moved. Neither Africa nor the world had seen that level of self-sacrificed sovereignty. Nkrumah negotiated and accepted the position of co-president (Ibid.). His position was not a token one but one of real authority (Kwame Touré Interview 1998). From this position in Guinea, he continued to coordinate the efforts of various freedom-fighter organizations.

Nkrumah Developed the Concept of African Union as the Optimal Level of Pan-African Agency

Nkrumah was an advocate of a collective African agency at the global level and was directly responsible for initiating the ‘African group’ at the United Nations. In fact, Nkrumah and his government was directly involved in organizing African states to vote in block in the early 1960s. They were also responsible for nominating a number of the new African states for United Nations membership. Ghana successfully introduced proposals that urged the United Nations Organization to essentially outlaw colonialism. Here it must be mentioned that Nkrumah would have preferred one powerful African vote to a large number of micro-national constituents. He reasoned that a powerfully consolidated and united African state would wield greater influence than a fragile federation of disunited polities. All states with veto power on the UN’s Security Council had the power to back up their declaration with military and economic might which was rooted in the political unity of the optimally organized states.

To Nkrumah, however, the full fruition of African nationalism would not be realized until it was organized into an organic political unit, which had one unified voice of policy in relation to the rest of the world. Nkrumah realized that this was the essential requirement of all world powers. They all needed a critical mass of land and population organized in such a way as to give primacy to a central political body in the affairs of foreign relations and internal infrastructure.

Nkrumah approached the wealth of Africa in the same way that he approached the wealth of Ghana. In Ghana, he was able to direct the profits from cocoa sales to the development of other areas in the country. Nkrumah saw enough human and natural resource potential in a united Africa to elevate it to the position of a superpower in the world. He stated such in his text written in 1963, titled Africa Must Unite (1970a), in which he demonstrated the potential material wealth that could result from an organic economic plan constructed on a continent-wide basis. In that text, Nkrumah succinctly showed how each African state’s financial position would be strengthened if it were backed by a mega-entity such as a united African state when dealing with foreign financial concerns. This unity would improve not only the terms of credit but also the pricing structure for products exported. Finally, it would provide an effective and efficient internal trading system that could quickly raise the standard of living for the African masses.

Essentially, Nkrumah wanted global power for Africans and felt that the reorganization of Africa was necessary to achieve it. He sought the power to reduce the threat of human mutual destruction. In fact, Nkrumah connected Africa’s liberation and unity to the objective of eliminating the escalation of conflict between the then super-powers of the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Without this liberation and unity on a continental level, Nkrumah asserted that the living standards of the average African would remain abysmal and lead to desperation. He further concluded that this desperate population would enroll in the ranks of pawns at beck and call of the world powers in their competition for dominance and hegemony. War and subsequent devastation would be imminent.

With this in mind, Nkrumah informed a mass gathering during Ghana’s Independence Celebrations that Ghana’s independence was meaningless as long as one inch of Africa remained under foreign control. In his presentation to a gathering of world-renowned scientists and activists, Nkrumah called for the removal of all foreign military bases from Africa’s soil. He also called for an immediate halt to France’s testing of nuclear weapons in the Sahara (1962).

To Nkrumah, the creation of an African Socialist Union became a strategic principle though he did show flexibility in proposals, which he put before successive Organization of African Unity (OAU) summits. In 1963, at the founding meeting of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Nkrumah urged his peer state leaders to follow the “Socialist pattern of Society, in which free development of each is a condition for the free development of all” (Nkrumah, p. 262, 1973c). It soon became evident that the ruling bodies of Africa, save a few close allies, were not in favor of the option offered by Nkrumah. A year later the OAU held its heads of states meeting in Cairo at which Nkrumah warned defensively:

Only if we can unite and carry out co-ordinated (sic) economic planning within the framework of African political unity, will it be possible for us to break the bonds of neo-colonialism and reconstruct our economies for the purpose of achieving real economic independence and higher living standards for all our African States, big or small. (p. 295, ibid.)

Finally, in 1965 at the summit gathering in Accra, Nkrumah advocated the creation of an African Common Market. He explained that this common market would strengthen the purchasing power of the African masses and encourage more favorable credit conditions on behalf of African states.

Nkrumah Offered a Philosophy to Defend the Ideology of the African Revolution

Simply put, policies reflect basic philosophies. Often discussions of philosophies were held only by its doctors. Nkrumah saw philosophy as a discussion that had to be addressed since his intent was to harmoniously reconcile conflicting worldviews that shared African living spaces. His academic preparation in the area helped, and his loyalty to traditional notions kept him grounded to the needs of the African population.

Nkrumah sought a philosophy that explained the many lively forces that occupied a territory, their interrelationships, and the surrogates of their interrelationships. He also wanted to reconcile the atheistic notions among socialists that would alienate the more religious African. Finally, Nkrumah wanted to advance some basic cardinal principles that would bring about the type of behavior conducive to building the new men and women he wanted to cultivate.

This philosophy for decolonization was ‘Consciencism’ (1970b) while its tactical adjunct was known as Positive Action. At the global level, the strategy called for a united socialist Africa as the power base of Pan-African agency.

Nkrumah Initiated African State Sponsored Afrocentric Research

Occasionally, usually in a character attack, scholars would claim that Nkrumah was not a scholar. These writers either overlooked or rejected Nkrumah’s academic degrees, body of written works, or professional titles. Most often, they disagreed with Nkrumah’s approach to education. Nkrumah advocated education for a knowledge that led to human service and liberation. He also advocated a cultural grounding for education. His launching of the Encyclopaedia Africana and the African Studies Institute at the University of Ghana were two examples of his contribution to such an education.

Nkrumah, much like Molefi Kete Asante and other Afrocentric scholars, called for the historiography of Africans to be centered on African interest and experiences. The actors and ultimate forces responsible were to be found in Africa. Nkrumah had attempted to influence the African Studies Association in this direction, but their scholars were too linked to colonial disciplines to be influenced. The resources of a state committed to Afrocentric education was a boon that has yet to be matched. For Nkrumah this commitment was not to a mere color-coding of faculty but to a corrective vision of facts. Afrocentric education was to serve the purpose of building an optimal power base for the African Revolution, which was, in turn, to improve the lives of Africans in particular and humanity in general. By developing the intellectual and technical awareness of the youth, future generations were guaranteed. By ensuring a healthy presentation of the people’s deep history, a general sense of awareness was awakened.

References

Nkrumah, K. (Speaker) (1962) The world without the bomb (Cassette Recording No. BB4744a – b) Accra, Ghana: Radio Ghana broadcast of Accra Assembly presentation.

________. 1965. Neo-colonialism: the last stage of imperialism. New York: International Publishers.

________. 1969b. Handbook of revolutionary warfare: a guide to the armed phase of the African revolution. First United States ed. New York: International Publishers. Original edition n.p. by author, 1968.

________. 1970a. Africa must unite. New ed. New York: International Publishers. Original edition by the author, 1963.

________. 1970b. Consciencism: Philosophy and ideology for de-colonization. First Modern Reader Paperback ed. New York: Modern Reader Paperbacks. Orignial edition by the author, 1964.

________. 1973a. Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah. Panaf ed. n. p.: Panaf. Original edition: New York, Nelson, 1957.

________. 1973b. I speak of freedom. Panaf ed. London: Panaf. Original editions New York: Praeger; London: Heinemann; Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press; 1961.

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