Nkrumah, Kwame
Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–72). Africa's most influential nationalist leader. After university education in the USA, Nkrumah helped to organize the fifth Pan-African Congress in Britain in 1945. Returning to the Gold Coast in 1947 he parted from the moderate leaders of the campaign for self-government to found the populist Convention Peoples' Party in 1949. Imprisoned after organizing a campaign of non-cooperation with the British colonial government in 1950, he was elected to Parliament in 1951 and was released from detention, becoming prime minister of the Gold Coast in 1952. He remained in office when the country, renamed Ghana, gained its independence in 1957, and became president of the Republic of Ghana in 1960. He worked hard to promote the political unification of Africa as a defence against neo-colonialism, but his financial extravagance and his increasingly authoritarian rule at home led to his overthrow in 1966. He subsequently lived in exile in Guinea.
Kenneth Ingham
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Nkrumah, Kwame
