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FREEDOMWAYS THIRD QUARTER 1972 Kwame Nkrumah in world history." None of the lies and slanders heaped upon President Nkrumah following the coup of February, 1966 have blinded Africans to the fact that he was foremost in breaking the fetters of colonialism, in opening the eyes of Africans and erasing the crawling mentality which centuries of domination had stamped on their brains. It was he who projected the African Personality to the world-a personality of strength, beauty and dignity. Now though the broken heart is still- though the tired and tortured flesh withers away and is no more, the indomitable spirit of this great son of Africa will lead on! His words which he set down so carefully and painstakingly up to his last days, will lead the ultimately victorious Freedom Fighters as they go forth to battle. His words will sustain them in their struggle; his singleness of purpose, determination and untiring drive will continue to inspire Africans and the dispossessed children of Africa, wherever they may be. The world noted his words, spoken at midnight on March 5, 1957, when the British Colony, the "Gold Coast," was wiped off the map and Ghana came into being. On that night, as the new flag was raised for the first time, as Ghana's first national anthem was played and thousands of happy Ghanaians shouted for joy-Kwame Nkrumah silenced that rejoicing for a moment to say: "The independence of Ghana is meaningless as long as any part of Africa is not liberated!" This Leader had vision which pierced distant horizons, stretched his people to their utmost capacity and reached for the heights of man's achievements. A short time after his death I was invited by African students- Ghanaians, Nigerians, Zimbabians-attending universities in the northeast section of the United States-to speak at a Memorial at Yale University. They had secured from the United Nations a recording of the speech Kwame Nkrumah made before the United Nations Assembly in 1960. As his voice rang out in the auditorium of Yale University Law School it was as if this Black man stood before us. He had faced the United Nations not merely as representative from Ghana-but as spokesman for the continent of Africa. He laid before them the dire situation in the Congo where Patrice Lumumba was struggling to liberate his people from the awful slavery imposed upon them by Belgium; he talked of Namibia, the true name of South West Africa, which in spite of countless reso- 200 NKRUMAH: AFRICAN LIBERATOR S. DU BOIS lutions and demands made by the United Nations, was sinking deeper and deeper into the deadly coils of South Africa; he talked of Rhodesia, where a few thousand whites had seized domination over millions of blacks-were driving them from their lands and taking over all the resources of this British colony, while Great Britain's Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, declared that Britain could not use "force" to safeguard the rights of the millions because Ian Smith and his cohorts were "kith and kin" of the British! Kwame Nkrumah was the first African to appear on the rostrum of the United Nations and he warned that unless that body heed its Charter, unless those who come together to "safeguard the security and peace of humanity" exert their combined strength and prevent the continuing rape of Africa, the United Nations would sink into useless and hypocritical oblivion and the world would be engulfed in strife. Surely, as we look around at the world today, as we witness the avowed helplessness of the United Nations to do anything effective, we grasp the prophetic wisdom of Nkrumah's words. And what would seem to be Nkrumah's reward for being the foremost architect of Africa's emancipation from foreign domination -to see his Government overthrown and to die a wanted man with a price on his head for any man who would bring him to Ghana dead or alive? To continue to be lied about by those enemies of Africa who had subverted his people and who, having, as they thought, rid themselves of Nkrumah, cast aside Ghana, and were only too glad to see that promising little country sink into a morass of ignominy? How could such tragic events transpire? How, indeed, could the February, 1966 coup in Ghana have been staged? Without attempting an analysis of colonialism-in which lie all the roots of African struggles today-I shall describe some of the remnants of colonialism as I saw them in Ghana. I was first in that country in December, 1958, one year after its "independence"- having gone there to deliver my husband's address to the First All- African Peoples Conference, called by the then Prime Minister Nkrumah. This was the first such gathering of peoples from all over Africa to be held on that continent. Dr. Du Bois had tried in vain to hold a Pan-African Congress in Africa, but the ruling colonial powers would not allow it. In opening the December Conference, Nkrumah designated it as the Sixth Pan-African Congress, but explained that because it included peoples of such diverse backgrounds, languages, cultures and customs it was more easily understood as a Conference 201
