Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian philosopher, sociologist and politician.
Background
Kwame Nkrumah was born on September 21, 1909 in the village of Nkroful (a modern area of Western Akhanti in the Western region of Ghana). He believed that he was born on September 18, on Saturday. According to the tradition adopted by the Akan, the child was given a name according to the day of the week in which he was born - Kwame means Saturday.
According to ethnicity - nzyma, father and mother were from the same tribe, but from different clans: father - from the clan of azon, mother - from the clan of anon. Due to the fact that the inheritance of the nisima is transmitted through the maternal line, Kwame belonged to the clan of the mother. By origin, Kwame could claim the thrones of the leaders of the two tribes - nsaeum and dadesso. At birth, he was baptized according to the rite of the Roman Catholic Church.
Kwame was born into a family of artisan-jeweler, engaged in coining. He was the only son of his mother, but his father had children from other wives (there were fourteen people in the family). Together with his mother he lived in Nkrofuleh until his three years, after that they moved to his father, who worked at Half-Asini.
Education
In Half-Asini Kwame went to the local Catholic missionary school. Training was paid, and not all parents gave their children to study, but Kwame's mother insisted on that. The school was very poor, classes were held in one room, all classes took turns. At school, Kwame studied for eight years.
In 1926 Kwame was noticed by the rector of the Pedagogical College from Accra. That was a turning point in the life of Kwame - from the provincial town, he was in the country's largest city, its political and cultural center. Despite the difficulties, Kwame decided not to quit his studies. In 1927 in Achimot, near Accra, the Prince's College of Wales was opened. The first African among the teachers of the college was Kvegiyir Aggrey, and his personality impressed Kwame, having awakened in him a "sense of nationalism". Hardly making ends meet, Kwame continued his training and, using the example of Aggray, began to dream of studying abroad. He studied the beginnings of higher mathematics, introduction to Latin, participated in performances. Together with his friends he studied playing folk instruments. In the last year of training, Kwame was appointed as a prefect (the senior pupil in a school that follows discipline), at the same time he began to take an interest in oratory.
Kwame entered Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1935 and, after graduating in 1939, obtained master’s degrees from Lincoln and from the University of Pennsylvania. He studied the literature of socialism, notably Karl Marx and Vladimir I. Lenin, and of nationalism, especially Marcus Garvey, the black American leader of the 1920s.
In 1930, Kwame completed his studies at college, and was invited to the post of teacher at the Roman Catholic Primary School in Elmina. Working as a teacher, Kwame made attempts to organize the Association of Teachers in Elmina. A year later he was appointed as a director of the school in Axim. Two years later Kwame went to teach at the Roman Catholic Seminary in Amissano, near Elmina. Within its walls, he seriously thought about becoming a member of the Jesuit order and devoting himself to serving God. However, the desire of learning was prevail, and Kwame began to make efforts to go to America.
Nkrumah was the founder of Pro-Africanism and later served as Prime Minister of Ghana from 1957 to 1964, and as President of Ghana from 1964 to 1966. He later helped to establish the Sixth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England, in 1945, and then he began to work for the decolonisation of Africa and became Vice-President of West African Students Union.
Kwame joined the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in 1947, and then formed his own party the same year, the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), with the motto 'Self-government now'. In 1949 Nkrumah left the UGCC and in December of 1949 he declared 'Positive Action' - mass action in the form of boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience, and was arrested by the British in January 1950. He was facing international protests and internal resistance but the British decided to leave Ghana.
Nkrumah won a seat in the Legislative Assembly in 1951, while still in prison, the CPP won 34 out of 38 seats. He was released later from prison and then asked to lead the new government in cooperation with the British to lead to indepenedence. In 1960 Ghana was declared a republic, and in 1963 Ghana became a charter member of the Organization of African Unity. After declaring himself President for life in 1964 he was plagued by economic downturn, political conflict, an assassination attempt, and general unrest while he established Ghana as a one-party state. In February 1966 while he was visiting Beijing, China, and Hanoi, Vietnam, his government was overthrown in a military coup d'état.
Nkrumah never returned to Ghana and he exiled in Guinea until he died of natural causes in Bucharest, Romania, on April 27, 1972, at the age of 62.
In his childhood, Kwame was religious, attended the church and served at the Masses. In his adulthood Nkrumah called himself a Christian but at the same time not belonging to any particular church, on the religion.
Politics
Nkrumah was an advocate of national independence. He formed the Convention People's Party, which achieved rapid success through its unprecedented appeal to the common voter. His administration was both socialist and nationalist.
Views
Kwame was a facilitator of the ideas of African unity and the "special way" of Africa, he was also the opponent of the negritude, in which "Negro nationalism" was not accepted, considering it necessary to replace it with "African nationalism". His system of views he called as conscientiousness the origins of which he considered the rationalistic version of European philosophy and Marx's "scientific socialism". From the very beginning, Nkrumah was convinced that the goal of the national liberation movement was not only to gain independence, but also to establish a democratic system and increase the welfare of the people on the basis of socialism.
Quotations:
"I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me."
"It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world."
"Capitalism is a development by refinement from feudalism, just as feudalism is development by refinement from slavery. Capitalism is but the gentlemen's method of slavery."
"Africa is one continent, one people, and one nation. The notion that in order to have a nation it is necessary for there to be a common language, a common territory and common culture has failed to stand the test of time or the scrutiny of scientific definition of objective reality... The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognise themselves as potentially one nation, whose dominion is the entire African continent."
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
The BBC World Service described him as a "Hero of Independence", and an "International symbol of freedom as the leader of the first black African country to shake off the chains of colonial rule."
Connections
Nkrumah married Fathia Rizk, an Egyptian Coptic bank worker and former teacher. Fathia's mother refused to bless their marriage, due to reluctance to see another of her children leave with a foreign husband. A couple had three children.