Kwame Nkrumah

Nkrumah, Kwame 

Born Sept. 21, 1909, in Nkroful, Gold Coast; died Apr. 27, 1972. Figure in the African national liberation movement; founder and first president of the Republic of Ghana.

The son of a jewelry-maker, Nkrumah graduated from a teachers college in Accra in 1930 and became a teacher. From 1935 to 1945 he lived in the United States, where he graduated from Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania; while in the USA he also lectured on philosophy. Between 1945 and 1947 he lived in Great Britain, where he became actively involved in the movement for national liberation of the peoples of Africa. In 1947, having returned to his homeland, he became general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention. In 1949 he founded the Convention People’s Party, which led the liberation struggle against the English colonialists.

Imprisoned during 1950–51 by the English colonial authorities, Nkrumah became head of the first African government of the Gold Coast in 1952 and served as prime minister of Ghana from 1957, when the country’s independence was proclaimed. In 1960 he also assumed the presidency of Ghana. As a result of a military coup, he was removed from the presidency in 1966. Nkrumah’s final years were spent in exile in Guinea. In 1961 he was awarded the International Lenin Prize For Strengthening Peace Between Nations. He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Moscow, Cairo, and Kraków, among others.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Avtobiografiia. Moscow, 1961.
Ia govoriu o svobode: Izlozhenie afrikanskoi ideologii. Moscow, 1962.
Afrika dolzhna ob’edinit’sia. Moscow, 1964.