KWAME NKRUMAH’S QUEST FOR PAN AFRICANISM: FROM INDEPENDENCE

198 Pages·2010·0.96 MB·English

by  Autumn Anne Lawson

KWAME NKRUMAH’S QUEST FOR PAN AFRICANISM: FROM INDEPENDENCE
LEADER TO DEPOSED DESPOT

A Thesis by

Autumn Anne Lawson

Bachelor of Arts, Acadia University, 2004

Submitted to the Department of History
and the faculty of the Graduate School of
Wichita State University
in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts

December 2010
 Copyright 2010 by Autumn Anne Lawson

All Rights Reserved
KWAME NKRUMAH’S QUEST FOR PAN AFRICANISM: FROM INDEPENDENCE
LEADER TO DEPOSED DESPOT

The following faculty members have examined the final copy of this thesis for form and content,
and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of
Master of Arts with a major in History.

_________________________________________
George Dehner, Committee Chair

___________________________________________
Robert M. Owens, Committee Member

____________________________________________
Chinyere Grace Okafor, Committee Member

iii
DEDICATION

For my beloved and greatly missed father Robert K. Edmiston
and my darling Maggie

iv
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones …
- William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. George Dehner. Without your continued guidance,
support and understanding I would never have found the motivation to finish. The great deal of
time, encouragement and advice you have given over the years has proved to be invaluable. You
are a true rarity in the academic world and I will be forever grateful that you agreed to take on
what seemed like a hopeless thesis student. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Dr.
Chinyere Okafor and Dr. Robert Owens for your insight and assistance in completing this
process. My uncle, Jon Callen, also deserves my sincere praise and recognition for the countless
hours of editing, counseling and encouragement. Words cannot express how thankful I am to
you for proofreading every draft of this thesis along with every paper I wrote in pursuit of this
degree. When you offered to fill a role my father assumed in my undergraduate years, I doubt
you realized the extent of what you agreed to, but you never once complained. Thank you so
much for always being there for me, it means more than you will ever know. I also want to
thank my amazing husband, Scott, who left everything behind and moved to Kansas so I could
pursue my dreams. You remain my constant in the craziness that seems to surround me and your
love, strength and patience gave me the drive to persevere through this difficult and long process.
To my family and friends who have extended to me their support and love through this journey,
thank you so much for your continued encouragement and tolerance of my often stressed and
defeatist attitude. Thank you also to the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard
University and to the reference assistants in the Manuscript Reading Room and the African and
Middle Eastern Reading Room at the Library of Congress for your invaluable assistance. Lastly,
thank you to Kwame Nkrumah and the people of Ghana for your inspiration and courage.

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ABSTRACT

On February 12, 1951, Francis Nwia-Kofi “Kwame” Nkrumah walked out of James Fort
Prison to become the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast. After a landslide election, Nkrumah
and his Convention People’s Party (CPP) sought to end British imperial rule in the Gold Coast
and create a socialist Pan African union on the continent. In six years the highly educated and
charismatic Nkrumah gained independence for the Gold Coast, which he promptly renamed
Ghana, on March 6, 1957. Both Nkrumah and Ghana entered independence with a great deal of
potential and possibility for success. However, Nkrumah’s desire for a United States of Africa
became an obsession that prevented the leader from attending to Ghana’s crucial economic and
development needs. As national opposition to Nkrumah’s leadership rose, he responded with
oppressive laws and increased centralized authority over the people who came to view Nkrumah
more as an egotistical dictator than a savior.
The majority of the literature surrounding the biography and legacy of Kwame Nkrumah
focuses on the leader’s shortcomings in an attempt to negate Nkrumah’s early accomplishments.
This work explores Nkrumah’s legacy from a middle ground perspective by examining how
Nkrumah successfully introduced Pan Africanism to Ghana and fought for the potential of
African unity. The composition also demonstrates how Nkrumah’s intoxication with his own
image and clear decline into dictatorship shattered his dreams of a United States of Africa.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

1. F.N. “KWAME” NKRUMAH: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AFRICAN
REVOULTIONARY……………………………………………………………………...1

2. ASHES OF A MODEL COLONY………………………………………………………11

3. ELECTIONS, ELECTIONS, ELECTIONS!!! ………………………………………….64

4. IN THE SHORTEST AMOUNT OF TIME …………………………………………...109

5. A MARATHON LOST IN THE LAST QUARTER MILE …………………………...162

BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………………...170

APPENDIX …………………………………………………………………………………….186

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CHAPTER ONE

F.N. “KWAME” NKRUMAH: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AFRICAN
REVOLUTIONARY

At one o’clock in the afternoon on February 12th, 1951, Francis Nwia-Kofi “Kwame”
Nkrumah emerged from James Fort Prison into the waiting crowd of joyous supporters. He
awoke a prisoner serving a three-year sentence for inciting illegal strikes and sedition; by
evening he was the first Prime Minister of the Gold Coast. Nkrumah and his Convention
People’s Party (CPP) won a landslide victory of 22,780 to 342 in the nation’s first independence
election on February 8, 1951. Nkrumah entered the Gold Coast’s political scene a highly
educated, charismatic revolutionary intent on ending imperialism and creating a Pan African
union guided by socialism. Filled with ambition, Nkrumah promised a new world for his fellow
countrymen, a world with democracy and hope; a united Africa devoid of foreign interference.
After 207 years of colonial rule, Nkrumah successfully delivered the Gold Coast, renamed to its
traditional Ghana, into independence on March 6, 1957. Nkrumah and Ghana entered
independence with great potential for lasting success. Unfortunately, a larger quest for a United
States of Africa became Nkrumah’s obsession after independence as he tried to push Ghanaians
toward a union for which they were not ready. Nkrumah’s obsession with Pan Africanism
prevented him from being able to efficiently divide his time between Ghana’s domestic needs
and his pursuit of unity, taking Nkrumah away from Ghana. His inability to be both a national
leader and a Pan Africanist revolutionary resulted in increased opposition to Nkrumah and the
CPP. Nkrumah responded with oppressive laws and increased authority over the people who
ultimately viewed him more as an ego driven dictator than the great leader he once was.1

1 Basil Davidson, Black Star: A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah (New York: Praeger Publications,
1973), 79-80; David Rooney, Kwame Nkrumah: The Political Kingdom in the Third World (New York: St. Martin’s
1
Nkrumah grew to political dominance during Africa’s era of nationalism that followed
the nineteenth century’s legendary Age of Imperialism. In their search for an African identity, a
group of African intellectuals introduced a new societal and civic model for the continent that
encompassed a political, social and cultural philosophy coined Pan Africanism. The term Pan
Africanism grew to have several definitions and estimated periods of origin. Nkrumah
subscribed to the Pan African theories conceptualized in the 1900s by leading black nationalists
Edward Wilmot Blyden, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois; Caribbean intellectuals from the
African Diaspora. Nkrumah was introduced to Pan Africanism in 1926 by his mentor and
teacher, Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey, while attending Achimota College in Accra, Gold Coast. It was
Aggrey who first introduced Nkrumah to the influential publications that poured out from radical
black nationalists. Du Bois, Garvey, Henry Sylvester Williams and other key Pan Africanists
molded Nkrumah’s Pan African beliefs and the necessity for African unity to avoid the pressures
of balkanization and neocolonialism. Nkrumah believed that Pan Africanism should be directed
by the tenets of socialism in order deliver the unity that Africa required, a belief that his mentor
did not share.2
Kwame Nkrumah’s post-colonial ascension to Prime Minister, and later President, of
Ghana and his dream for a socialist Pan African State brought international attention to the

Press, 1988), 60; Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (London: Thomas Nelson and
Sons Ltd., 1957; New York: International Publishers Co., 1971), 136. Citations are to the International Publishers
Co. edition; Barbara S. Monfils, “A Multifaceted Image: Kwame Nkrumah’s Extrinsic Rhetorical Strategies,”
Journal of Black Studies 7 (1977): 315.
2 A.W. Singham and Shirley Hune, Non-Alignment in an Age of Alignments, (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986), 57-
61; Hakim Adi and Marika Sherwood, Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora Since
1787, (London: Routledge, 2003), vii-viii; Nkrumah, Ghana, 13; 15; Rooney, 8-10; Marika Sherwood, Kwame
Nkrumah: The Years Abroad 1935-1947 (Legon, Ghana: Freedom Publications, 1996), 18; Dabu Gizenga’s
Collection on Kwame Nkrumah Papers Box 128-4 Folder 65; Manuscript Division, Moorland-Springarn Research
Center, Howard University; June Milne, Kwame Nkrumah, A Biography (London: Panaf Books, 1999), 6-7; Cecil
Blake, “An African Nationalist Ideology Framed in Diaspora and the Development Quagmire: Any Hope for a
Renaissance?,” Journal of Black Studies 35 (2005): 574-575; George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?:
The Coming Struggle for Africa (London: Dennis Dobson, 1956), 117; Alexandre Mboukou, “The Pan African
Movement, 1900-1945: A Study in Leadership Conflicts Among the Disciples of Pan Africanism,” Journal of Black
Studies 13 (March 1983): 277-278; Alan Rake, “Is Pan-Africa Possible?,” Transition 4 (1962): 29.
2