Kwame Nkrumah
September 21, 1909 – April 27, 1972
Leader of the Gold Coast's independence movement and first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, the first sub-Saharan colony to win independence (1957). He was overthrown in 1966.
Biography
Kwame Nkrumah studied in the United States and Britain, where he became active in the pan-African movement. He returned to the Gold Coast in 1947 and in 1949 founded the Convention People's Party, which campaigned for "self-government now".
Jailed in 1950 for organising strikes, he was released after his party won the 1951 election and became leader of government business, then prime minister. In 1957 he led the Gold Coast to independence as Ghana, the first sub-Saharan colony to break free of European rule.
Ghana became a republic in 1960 with Nkrumah as president. He championed African unity and helped found the Organisation of African Unity, but at home he made Ghana a one-party state and the economy declined. He was overthrown in a military coup in 1966 while abroad and died in exile in 1972.
Offices held
Charles Arden-Clarke Succeeded by
Joseph Arthur Ankrah
