Kwame Nkrumah and Pan African Consciousness: 1957 – 1966

Abstract

Kwame Nkrumah was a foremost Pan African leader who brought Pan Africanism from the Diaspora to the mother continent after hosting the first All African Peoples Conference (AAPC) in Accra in December, 1958; which took far reaching decisions on African redemption. He had inspiration from Dr. J. E. K. Aggrey, Marcus Garvey, WEB DuBois, George Padmore, etc. on Pan Africa tradition. He demonstrated this during the fifth Pan African Congress in Manchester in 1945 where his paper Declaration to the colonial peoples of the world was approved by the delegates to that conference and this he pursued vigorously when his country attained independence in 1957. It was in this perspective that his influence came to bear on the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 now the African Union (AU) as well as other regional bodies e.g. the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975 three years after his death. It was also from this perspective that Nkrumah brought Africans both at home and the Diaspora (through their leaders) e.g. Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, Muhammed Ali and Kwame Ture (formerly Stockley Carmichael) together.

Keywords: Nkrumah, Kwame, Padmore, Garvey, Pan-African, and Consciousness