HBD Kwame Nkrumah!!!! Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972) was the first President of the first free nation in Africa, and a founding father of the Pan-Africanist movement. His dream was to turn Ghana into a modern industrial utopia – a society shaped by the power of science that would serve as a model for the rest of the African continent. At the heart of his plan was the Volta Dam, a hydroelectric power plant that would provide Ghana with all the cheap power that it would need to initiate an industrial revolution. In 1935 Kwame Nkruma left Ghana for the United States as a student, receiving a BA from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania in 1939. During that time, he was elected president of the African Students Organization of America and Canada. He was also exposed to the philosophy and teachings of Marcus Garvey. In 1947, Nkrumah returned to Ghana and within two years created the country’s first political party. Within two years after that, he was swept into power as the first Black Prime Minister in Africa under the British colonial system. With the threat of uprisings abroad and financial crisis at home, Britain reluctantly set Ghana free on March 6, 1957. Nkrumah easily won election as the country’s first President, and chose a flag with the Black star–inspired by Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line – at its center to represent the new nation. Nkrumah also launched a series of popular social projects on behalf of his people, including The Organization of African Unity (OAU). The OAU was established on 25 May 1963. One year later, Malcolm X, John Henrik Clarke, and other black nationalist leaders established the Organization for African American Unity (OAAU) modeled after Kwame’s idea. Malcom X was assassinated, Febuary 21, 1965, exactly one year later a CIA backed coup began to overthrow Kwame Nkrumah.-QE If Ghana was to become a modern industrial nation, it needed both industry and the power to fuel that industry and provide the continent with its first industrial revolution. During his campaign, Nkrumah’s platform was founded on the idea of modernization, but without funding for the Volta river project, there was no way that dream could become a reality. Nkrumah set back out for America to sell the project to then President Eisenhower who took an immediate interest. The manufacturing process for a new metal called aluminum had been discovered, and aluminum ore was abundant in Ghana. the worlds energy prices were raising, and having access to a cheap source of electricity with which to process aluminum would have greatly increased the profit margins and reduced processing costs for the manufacture of the metal. President Eisenhower contacted California based Kaiser Aluminum, the world’s largest aluminum manufacturer, to exploit the opportunity and fund the project. The assumption that America would mine Ghana’s bauxite and use the Volta dam’s electricity meant two new large income streams and industries that would assure Nkrumah’s dream of an industrial revolution. However, Kaiser Aluminum had different plans. They would only use Ghana’s cheap electricity – importing aluminum ore from other places in the world, and then exporting the aluminum back to America. The thought was that if the operation became too profitable, Nkrumah could nationalize the dam project and cut America out completely. Nkrumah ultimately had to agree to America’s terms if he wanted the dam to be built, but as an additional stipulation, he had to raise $30 million on his own. He sought help from the World Bank, an operation initially set up to fund the recovery effort in post WWII Europe, but which later became a source of funding for the rest of the world. The exploitation of Ghana went into full swing; it became a haven for American and European industrialists who were interested in taking advantage of the country’s desire to modernize. The Volta Dam was completed on January 22, 1966. One month later, Nkrumah was overthrown. Black Power • The Kwame Nkrumah Documentary
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 21:02:34 +0000
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