{"id":2088,"date":"2022-08-22T22:19:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T22:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.knmp.gov.gh\/?page_id=2088"},"modified":"2025-08-25T10:52:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:52:24","slug":"biography-of-osagyefo-dr-kwame-nkrumah","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/biography-of-osagyefo-dr-kwame-nkrumah\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Overview<\/h4>\n

Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was born in September 1909 in Nkroful, Gold Coast (now Ghana), and died on April 27, 1972, in Bucharest, Romania. He was a Ghanaian nationalist leader who led the Gold Coast\u2019s drive for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new nation of Ghana. He headed the country from independence in 1957 until 1966.<\/p>\n

Early Years, Prison, and Presidency<\/h4>\n

Early Years<\/h5>\n

Kwame Nkrumah\u2019s father was a goldsmith and his mother a retail trader. Baptized a Roman Catholic, Nkrumah spent nine years at the Roman Catholic elementary school in nearby Half Assini. After graduation from Achimota College in 1930, he started his career as a teacher at Roman Catholic junior schools in Elmina and Axim and at a seminary.<\/p>\n

Increasingly drawn to politics, Nkrumah decided to pursue further studies in the United States. He entered Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1935 and, after graduating in 1939, obtained master\u2019s degrees from Lincoln and from the University of Pennsylvania. He studied the literature of socialism, notably Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, and of nationalism, especially Marcus Garvey, the Black American leader of the 1920s. Eventually, Nkrumah came to describe himself as a \u201cnondenominational Christian and a Marxist socialist.\u201d He also immersed himself in political work, reorganizing and becoming president of the African Students\u2019 Organization of the United States and Canada. He left the United States in May 1945 and went to England, where he organized the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester.<\/p>\n

Invited to serve as the UGCC\u2019s general secretary, Nkrumah returned home in late 1947. As general secretary, he addressed meetings throughout the Gold Coast and began to create a mass base for the new movement. When extensive riots occurred in February 1948, the British briefly arrested Nkrumah and other leaders of the UGCC.<\/p>\n

When a split developed between the middle-class leaders of the UGCC and the more radical supporters of Nkrumah, he formed in June 1949 the new Convention Peoples\u2019 Party (CPP), a mass-based party that was committed to a program of immediate self-government. In January 1950, Nkrumah initiated a campaign of \u201cpositive action,\u201d involving nonviolent protests, strikes, and noncooperation with the British colonial authorities.<\/p>\n

From Prison to Prime Minister<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In the ensuing crisis, services throughout the country were disrupted, and Nkrumah was again arrested and sentenced to one year\u2019s imprisonment. But the Gold Coast\u2019s first general election (February 8, 1951) demonstrated the support the CPP had already won. Elected to Parliament, Nkrumah was released from prison to become leader of government business and, in 1952, prime minister of the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

When the Gold Coast and the British Togoland trust territory became an independent state within the British Commonwealth, as Ghana, in March 1957, Nkrumah became the new nation\u2019s first prime minister. In 1958 Nkrumah\u2019s government legalized the imprisonment without trial of those it regarded as security risks. It soon became apparent that Nkrumah\u2019s style of government was to be authoritarian. Nkrumah\u2019s popularity in the country rose, however, as new roads, schools, and health facilities were built and as the policy of Africanization created better career opportunities for Ghanaians.<\/p>\n

By a plebiscite of 1960, Ghana became a republic and Nkrumah became its president, with wide legislative and executive powers under a new constitution. Nkrumah then concentrated his attention on campaigning for the political unity of Black Africa, and he began to lose touch with realities in Ghana. His administration became involved in magnificent but often ruinous development projects, so that a once-prosperous country became crippled with foreign debt. His government\u2019s Second Development Plan, announced in 1959, had to be abandoned in 1961 when the deficit in the balance of payments rose to more than $125 million. Contraction of the economy led to widespread labour unrest and to a general strike in September 1961. From that time Nkrumah began to evolve a much more rigorous apparatus of political control and to turn increasingly to the communist countries for support.<\/p>\n

President of Ghana and Afterward<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Security threats to Nkrumah led to his increasing seclusion from public life and to the growth of a personality cult, as well as to a massive buildup of the country\u2019s internal security forces. Early in 1964, Ghana has officially designated a one-party state, with Nkrumah as the life president of both the nation and party. While the administration of the country passed increasingly into the hands of self-serving and corrupt party officials, Nkrumah busied himself with the ideological education of a new generation of Black African political activists. Meanwhile, the economic crisis in Ghana worsened and shortages of foodstuffs and other goods became chronic. On February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was visiting Beijing, the army and police in Ghana seized power. Returning to West Africa, Nkrumah found asylum in Guinea, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died of cancer in Bucharest in 1972.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>

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Quotes<\/h4>\n

\u201cI am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.\u201d<\/em>
\n- Kwame Nkrumah<\/p>\n

\u201cWe face neither East nor West; We face forward\u201d<\/em>
\n- Kwame Nkrumah<\/p>\n

\u201cThe forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart.\u201d<\/em>
\n- Kwame Nkrumah<\/p>\n

\u201cAction without thought is empty. Thought without action is blind.\u201d<\/em>
\n- Kwame Nkrumah<\/p>\n

\u201cThought without practice is empty; and action without thought is blind.\"<\/em>
\n(The other 'quote' has it backwards.)\u201d<\/em>
\n- Kwame Nkrumah<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the fair brave words spoken about freedom that had been broadcast to the four corners of the earth took seed and grew where they had not been intended.\u201d<\/em>
\n- Kwame Nkrumah<\/p>\n

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Overview Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was born in September 1909 in Nkroful, Gold Coast (now Ghana), and died on April 27, 1972, in Bucharest, Romania. He was a Ghanaian nationalist leader who led the Gold Coast\u2019s drive for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new nation of Ghana. He headed the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2088","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2088"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3208,"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2088\/revisions\/3208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knmp.gov.gh\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}