SUNRISE ON THE GOLD COAST

"Through the streets of Accra, capital of the Gold Coast, democracy ran joyously wild. The women in the parade were slim and graceful, furled like striped umbrellas into acres of colorful cotton cloth. The men wore shirts open at the neck and hanging outside their shorts. Everyone in the procession was black and proud of it.
Suddenly, the noisy crowd parted. Through a forest of waving palm branches, an open car bore a husky black man with fine sculptured lips, melancholy eyes, and a halo of frizzy black hair. The Right Honorable Kwame Nkrumah, prime minister of the Gold Coast, waved a white handkerchief to his people as they sought to touch the hem of his tunic.
Nkrumah’s 4.5 million countrymen speak a range of languages and are scattered across a rectangular patch of jungle, swamp, and bushland. Seven out of ten are illiterate, more than half believe in witchcraft, yet the happy-go=-luck Gold Coasters have been chosen by imperial Britain to pioneer its boldest experiment in African home rule. In 1951 the British gave the Gold Coast its first democratic constitution; lat year they designated Kwame Nkrumah as prime minister.
Nkrumah was born in the mud-hut village of Nkroful, where his father hammered out gold ornaments for local woodcutters. Nkrumah studied at a Catholic mission school and a Gold Coast college. Then a generous uncle paid his way to the United States. He spent eight years at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he earned three degrees. From there he went to England to take a law degree at London University.
While he was in London, the cause of African nationalism was heating up at home. Nkrumah was picked to head the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), which was demanding home rule. Soon the British were presented with a new constitution that called for popular elections. The UGCC’s slogan had been “self-government in our time.” Nkrumah wanted more. He demanded “self-government NOW.” He formed the Convention People’s Part (CPP).
Last March, the British government approved Kwame Nkrumah as full prime minister. Now he feels the full responsibility of leading his people to complete self-government. Of the Gold Coasters, he says, “They must not make me go too fast – and I must not go too slow. If I tried to stop their urge to be free, they would turn on me. My job is to keep things level and steady.”
It is in the jubilant Gold Coast, and in its hero Nkrumah, that some of Africa’s awakening millions see the early light of freedom dawning over the continent."

Abridged version of article printed Feb. 9, 1953 in TIME Magazine