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Pan Africanism: The Impact of the Nkrumah Years 1945-1966

Obinna Onwumere, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College CUNY
obinoge@hotmail.com

Kwame Nkrumah’s vehement outcry for African unity, political and economic independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s was most visible through the notion of Pan-Africanism. While Pan-Africanism is considered to be a political ideology or movement that encourages that all Africans and Africans in the Diaspora should unite in order to form a political union based on African ancestry, Nkrumah believed that Pan-Africanism was the most viable option for Africa’s total liberation and decolonization.
Nkrumah’s early Pan-African activities were discerned during his active membership with the West African Students’ Union in London, including his efforts to help organize the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress. When Ghana attained independence in 1957, Nkrumah declared that Ghana’s independence is pointless unless it is connected with the total liberation of the African continent. In this connection, Nkrumah’s yearn for Pan-Africanism ideals was discernable during his student days in London, the Congo Crisis, the independence struggle of other African nations, and the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. A significant portion of Nkrumah’s time was embedded on developing theoretical and practical rudiments for African unity. Although Nkrumah’s dream for Africa’s total liberation was truncated by the 1966 coup in Ghana, Nkrumah still occupies a lofty place in the history of Africa’s liberation struggle.