Kwame Nkrumah, an Africanist and first president of Ghana, inspired his generation and continues to inspire Africanists worldwide decades after his demise. His ideals have inspired another Africanist, Prof Jacob U. Gordon, to publish a new book on how the ideals of Nkrumah can provide the inspiration for the successful future of Africa.
Prof. Gordon is an Emeritus Professor of African Studies at the University of Kansas. He served as Kwame Nkrumah Endowed Chair in African Studies at the University of Ghana from 2012 to 2015. He is the author or co-author of two dozen books, numerous scholarly articles, book chapters, and monographs.
His latest book, Revisiting Kwame Nkrumah: Pathways for the Future, draws on numerous sources, including interviews, academic seminars, reflections on Kwame Nkrumah by his contemporaries, family members, the youth in Ghana, Africanists, and selected original academic papers focusing on Kwame Nkrumah’s life and times. It concludes that President Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-African vision in the 1950s and 1960s remains relevant today and for the future of Africa in the 21st century.
In his foreword about the book, Prof. Seth Asumah, a SUNY distinguished teaching professor, writes, “Gordon’s ability to chronicle Kwame Nkrumah’s life, intellectual acumen, transformational and visionary leadership, approaches to social change, and an Africanization process marshalled by the reconfiguration of the African personality and policy, sets this book apart from other works about Kwame Nkrumah. This work on Nkrumah and his presidency is not an end unto itself, but a conceptual bridge for Africanists and African enthusiasts to travel to the future.”
In another forward to the book, Prof Akosua Adomako Ampofo, a former director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, writes, “In Revisiting Kwame Nkrumah: Pathways for the Future, Professor Gordon provides us with a unique window into Nkrumah the man and his ideals, from the perspective of both Nkrumah’s better known contemporaries, as well as many of those ‘ordinary’ people whose lives were directly impacted by his visions for Ghana and Africa.”
CIHA Blog editorial assistants Abena Kyere and Edwin Adjei caught up with Prof Gordon for a Q & A session.
Question: In your book, you emphasize Nkrumah’s Pan-African identity, consciousness, and social justice ideals. How are these relevant today?
Answer: Nkrumah’s Pan-African identity is relevant today. It led to the creation of OAU, now the AU; its premise is African unity. It may not be in the form of the United States of Africa; indeed, the AU now stresses regional integration and development. However, it is relevant because Nkrumah warned against neocolonialism and industrial development dominated by foreign countries. He called for African consciousness and self-reliance.
Pan-Africanism plays out in many ways. The quest for African unity was based on the principle of African self-determination; the ability of African to control its destiny, including productive use of its resources to improve Africans’ quality of life (AQoL). In my view Pan-African transformational leadership remains a viable imperative if Africa is to win the future for the people of this continent. It also has implications for the African Diaspora.
Question: How, specifically, do you see pan-Africanism playing out in terms of social welfare and social services?
Answer: Operationalizing Pan-Africanism promises African economic independence; the abolition of neocolonialism; the regeneration of African history and its contributions to world civilization; and the significant reduction of corruption. Pan-Africanism has the potential of developing a Pan-African pact against any outside aggression, instead of depending on the EU or Africom for security. It will also compel the restructuring of the UN to ensure at least one permanent seat for Africa on the UN Security Council.
Question: What role should religious leaders of all kinds play in fostering pan-Africanism, if any?
Answer: African peoples, both on the Continent and in the Diaspora, are spiritual people. Religion has always played important roles in African life. African traditional religions, Islam, and Christianity are important historical components of human institutions. This impacts other institutions: the family, the economy, educational and political systems. The founding fathers of Pan-Africanism were people of faith. Eradication of corruption is a challenge to African faith communities.
Question: Do you see links between African Studies and African American and Black studies being linked intellectually but also practically?
Answer: African Studies must be viewed in the context of the origin of the human race, the cradle of civilization as a foundation for understanding the human experience. The disciplines of African- American, and Black Studies – are inextricably linked to Africa. In his speech, The African Genius given at the opening of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in 1963, Nkrumah emphasized that African Studies must include the African Diaspora.
Question: Please say a bit more about pan-Africanism, faith and spirituality, including the Diaspora and the new forms of African religions we find in places like Cuba and even Mexico.
Answer: The literature on the transplantation of African value systems, cosmology, and religion to the African Global Diaspora has been well documented. Yet, the Pan-African linkages have, to a large extent, been neglected/or ignored by Africanists and advocates of Pan-Africanism. Since the first Pan-African conference convened by H. Sylvester Williams, a Caribbean barrister-at-law in London in 1900; individuals and organizations have made efforts to operationalize the idea of Pan-Africanism. Short of achieving the ultimate aim of the creation of a United States of Africa, significant efforts have been made toward linkages between Africa and the African Diaspora. Individual efforts include the works of DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Delany (1812-1885), Alexander Crummell and Andrew Young. Organizations include the African-American Institute, TransAfrica Forum, African Colonization Society, African American Association of Ghana, and the Rev Leon Sullivan Biennial Summit, to name a few.
On the inspirational level linkages have historically existed between Africa and the African Diaspora faith communities; especially in the U.S., South America, including Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, etc. In recent years African missionaries have established churches in the Diaspora: The Anglican Church from Nigeria has led this reverse movement. The African Studies Center at the University of Texas has embarked on a new Yoruba Studies Program in collaboration with Brazil.
Question: Do you see a linking of Africa and her diaspora materialized (more/better) in ‘practical’ terms?
Answer: There is plenty of evidence of Pan-Africanism with reference to linkages with the African Diaspora is plenty. What is missing is the apparent failure of African and the Diasporan leadership to pull the pieces together. The academy in the African world has also failed to galvanize the academic community; the Pan-African university idea is yet to be realized. Nevertheless, these building block steps are necessary for the future of Pan-Africanism. It should be noted here that Churchill’s idea in 1946 to create a United States of Europe is yet to materialize; a step forward and two backward, especially in light of Brexit–UK’s recent referendum to withdraw from the European Union.
Question: What impacts would putting this vision into reality have on the way humanitarianism is practiced by transnational nongovernmental organizations and donor states (given the concerns of the CIHA Blog)?
Answer: African leadership must engage the African Diaspora as a partner in developing the homeland. A United States of Africa Congress in collaboration with the African Union should be convened to revisit and find new pathways to move forward. The Kwame Nkrumah pathways can serve as a foundation for realizing the dreams of the founding fathers of Pan-Africanism. The dreams, willingness, and intelligence to realize the promise of Pan-Africanism are widely distributed throughout the African world. What is lacking are, among other things, systems and institutions that reward good behavior. Black scholars and Black political leadership must work together if the practical aspects of Pan-Africanism are to become a reality.
Abena Kyere and Edwin Adjei are Ph.D students at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, and are editorial assistants of the CIHA blog and Luce Graduate Fellows at the CIHA Blog.