Page 70 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

nkrumah, kwame 1371
nkru mah, kw ame 1371

Our colonial past and the present day intrigues of Neo-colonialism have hammered home the conviction that Africa
can no longer trust anybody but herself and her resources....We in Africa must learn to band together to promote
African interests or fall victims to imperialist maneuvers to recolonize us. • Kwame Nkurmah (1909–1972)

chronologies and prophecies. In fact, all of Newton’s earlier, this international boundary split the Nzima peo-
work was interrelated. It is inadequate to describe him as ple, to whom Nkrumah belonged, between two different
a scientist, a modern term. A man of his own times, he countries.The arbitrary nature of the borders of modern
was a cosmologist who sought to understand every- African states remains a major colonial legacy, and was
thing as a single system. Despite the need to put Newton a problem Nkrumah dealt with directly later in life
into the context of late-seventeenth-century Europe, he through unification policies, which proposed redrawing
remains a powerful symbol of the new science that even- African borders. Lucky to receive an education, Nkrumah
tually changed the world. eventually attended the Government (teacher) Training
College. Here he was introduced to the ideas of the
David M. Fahey
Jamaican Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey (1887–1940).
Garvey’s writings emphasized the links between all peo-
Further Reading ple of African descent and the need to build an African
Nation. It was also at college that Nkrumah became in-
Berlinski, D. (2000). Newton’s gift: How Sir Isaac Newton unlocked the
system of the world. New York: Free Press. terested in going to the United States. He left the Gold
Fara, P. (2002). Newton: The making of a genius. New York: Columbia Coast in 1936, but went first to London.While in Lon-
University Press.
Fara, P. (2004). Pandora’s breeches: Women, science and power in the don, Nkrumah learned of Ethiopia’s defeat by the Italian
Enlightenment. London: Pimlico. Fascists.Years later Nkrumah said that at that moment he
Gleick, J. (2003). Isaac Newton. New York: Pantheon Books.
Guerlac, H. (1981). Newton on the continent. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni- felt “as if the whole of London had declared war on me
versity Press. personally” (Nkrumah 1957, 27).The Italian invasion of
Hall, A. R. (1992). Isaac Newton: Adventurer in thought. Oxford, UK: the last independent state in Africa was seen as an out-
Blackwell.
Manuel, F. E. (1968). Portrait of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard rage throughout the black world. It clearly connected
University Press. imperialism to war and highlighted the exploitation of
Westfall, R. S. (1980). Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton. Cam-
bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Africa under European colonial rule. It was in this con-
White, M. (1997). Isaac Newton: The last sorcerer. Reading, MA: Addi- text that Nkrumah arrived in the United States.
son-Wesley.
Zinsser, J. P. (2003). The ultimate commentary: A consideration of I. While in the United States, Nkrumah began to link the
Bernard Cohen’s Guide to Newton’s Principia. Notes and Records of racism experienced by U.S. blacks to the colonial rela-
the Royal Society of London,57(2), 231–238. tionships experienced by blacks in Africa and the
Caribbean. He graduated from Lincoln University in
Pennsylvania in 1939 and entered the Ph.D. program in
Nkrumah, Kwame philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he

(1909–1972) published his anti-imperialist ideas more widely in a stu-
First head of dent paper, The African Interpreter. Nkrumah became in-
independent Ghana volved in politically organizing Africans abroad through
the Pan-Africanist movement. His dissertation, entitled
ormerly known as the Gold Coast, Ghana was the The Philosophy of Imperialism, with Special Reference to
Ffirst sub-Saharan African colony to gain independ- Africa, was never accepted by the university; Nkrumah
ence from European colonial rule, providing a model for believed he was the victim of political censorship. In
other aspiring African states. Under Nkrumah’s leader- 1945 Nkrumah went to London to study law and per-
ship, Ghana promoted a firm anti-imperialist foreign pol- haps to finish his doctoral dissertation. However, he
icy and pan-African political and economic unity directed quickly became immersed in the organization of the
at creating a United States of Africa. upcoming Fifth Pan-African Conference, which was to be
Nkrumah was born near the modern border between held in Manchester and chaired by one of his heroes,
Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Established less than ten years W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963).The contacts Nkrumah