a writing group started in 2013, Reem Bailony, Josh Birk, Sergey Glebov, Sarah Hines, Liz Pryor, Shani Roper, and Nadya Sbaiti have read and commented on nearly every aspect of the book. Likewise, in taking on the burden of running a History Department overrun by assistant professors, Marnie Anderson, Ernest Benz, Darcy Buerkle, Jennifer Guglielmo, Richard Lim, Lyn Minnich, and Ann Zulawski have selflessly created the space for all of us assistant professors to succeed, while also serving as invaluable mentors. Elliot Fratkin, Katwiwa Mule, Greg White, and Louis Wilson have played equally generous roles in the African Studies Program. Pinky Hota and Christen Mucher have always been available to talk through ideas and strategize. Furthermore, one of the true joys of working at a place like Smith is the institutional commitment to bringing undergraduates into one’s research. As research assistants, Jona Elwell, Elizabeth Hoffmeyer, and Freda Raitelu have each contributed to this book in profound ways.
Several institutions have also made this book possible through their generous funding. The University of Illinois and Smith College have provided significant support for my research. Likewise, it is hard to imagine a fellowship opportunity that could offer as enriching an experience as that offered by the University of Virginia’s Woodson Institute. My tenure at Johns Hopkins University was similarly fulfilling. Furthermore, the Council on Library and Information Resources’ Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources, the American Historical Association’s Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, and the West African Research Association’s Pre-doctoral Fellowship all made the fieldwork and archival research for this project possible. Furthermore, Cambridge University Press and the University of Wisconsin Press kindly allowed me to use adapted and revised portions of articles I previously published in the Journal of African History and Ghana Studies in this book. Additionally, Kristy Johnson provided valuable copyediting assistance at various stages of the project, as has Ed Vesneske, Jr., to the final manuscript. At Ohio University Press, I want to thank Gillian Berchowitz, the staff who designed the book, the two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, and the trio of editors of the New African Histories series—Jean Allman, Allen Isaacman, and Derek Peterson—for their enthusiasm for the project and help in sharpening my writing and arguments as I sought to turn a manuscript into a book.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family in Nebraska and Massachusetts. My parents, Roger and Julie Ahlman, have long encouraged me, as have my sisters, Sarah Hoins and Laura Ahlman. My grandparents—Donnie Dyer, Marean Dyer, and Marjorie Ahlman—have always been there for me. Likewise, Gene, Michelle, and Allison Hasenkamp have kindly adopted me into their family. Furthermore, Michelle’s generosity in helping with childcare was invaluable in helping me finish the book. Finally, for sixteen years, Katie Ahlman has been my closest friend and companion, living with (and enduring) this project in all its incarnations. It is nearly impossible to thank her enough for her support, encouragement, and patience. At five now, our daughter, Emmanuelle, has provided the fruitful distractions required for moving this project forward.
Abbreviations
| AAC | African Affairs Centre |
| AAPC | All-African People’s Conference |
| ADM | Administrative Files |
| ARG | Ashanti Regional Archives |
| ARPS | Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (Gold Coast) |
| BAA | Bureau of African Affairs |
| BRG | Brong Ahafo Regional Archives |
| CAB | Cabinet Papers |
| CIAS | Conference of Independent African States |
| CO | Colonial Office |
| CPP | Convention People’s Party |
| CYO | Committee on Youth Organization |
| DO | Dominions Office |
| GCP | Ghana Congress Party |
| GPRL | George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs |
| FRUS | Foreign Relations of the United States |
| KNII | Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute |
| MAP | Muslim Association Party |
| MNC | Mouvement National Congolais |
| MSRC | Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (Howard University) |
| NASSO | National Association of Socialist Students Organisations |
| NCGW | National Council of Ghana Women |
| NLC | National Liberation Council |
| NLM | National Liberation Movement |
| NYPL | New York Public Library |
| PAF | Pan-African Federation |
| PDA | Preventative Detention Act |
| PDG | Parti Démocratique de Guinée |
| PP | Progress Party |
| PRAAD | Public Records and Archives Administration Department |
| PREM | Prime Minister’s Office Files |
| PUA | Princeton University Archives |
| RDA | Rassemblement Démocratique Africain |
| RG | Record Group |
| RLAA | Research Library on African Affairs |
| SC | Special Collections |
| SCUA | Special Collections and University Archives |
| SSC | Sophia Smith Collection |
| UI | University of Iowa |
| TANU | Tanganyika African National Union |
| TNA | The National Archives of the United Kingdom |
| TUC | Trades Union Congress |
| UGCC | United Gold Coast Convention |
| UMASS Amherst | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| UN | United Nations |
| UP | United Party |
| WANS | West African National Secretariat |
| WASU | West African Student Union |
| WAYL | West African Youth League |
| WRG | Western Regional Archives |
Introduction
Decolonization and the Pan-African Nation
Our Independence means much more than merely being free to fly our own flag and to play our own national anthem. It becomes a reality only in a revolutionary framework when we create and sustain a level of economic development capable of ensuring a higher standard of living, proper education, good health and the cultural development of all our citizens.
—Kwame Nkrumah, undated speech1
In the building of a new society on liberation socialist lines, the people must be taught to help themselves.
—Report by George Padmore, 19522
IN MARCH 1957, the relatively small West African country of Ghana—previously known as the Gold Coast—attained its independence. It was the first sub-Saharan colony to emerge from European colonial rule.3 The world into which the young Ghanaian state entered was one of transition. Much as the First World War had done a generation earlier, the Second World War had had a devastating impact on each of Europe’s major powers. In doing so, it threatened an international political order constructed around European imperial power. In Great Britain and France in particular, Europe’s two most dominant imperial powers, the governments of both states struggled in the war’s aftermath to make sense of the changing political world. Burdened with the obligation of paying off their war debts and the need to rebuild, they each scrambled to find ways to balance pressures at home with the maintenance of their massive empires abroad. Furthermore, the war’s end also ushered in the seemingly unchecked rise of the American and Soviet superpowers and of the bipolar world they would spend the greater part of the next half century constructing. Meanwhile, in Africa and Asia, the postwar story has long been one of a rising set of demands for colonial reform and agitation, shifting to a period of nationalist mobilization, followed by independence and, in many cases, postcolonial decline. The narrative that arose in these world regions was therefore one centered on not only the foundation of the twentieth-century postcolonial nation-state, but, just as importantly, its political, economic, and civic demise.
Ghana, ca. 1960. Produced by the Smith College Spatial Analysis Lab.
In the decade following Ghana’s independence and beyond, many
