The Death and Burial of Kwame Nkrumah

Abstract

In April 1972 Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, passed away in a hospital bed in Bucharest, Romania. Nkrumah’s death, often treated as an endnote in the growing scholarship on the Pan-Africanist possibilities of the 1950s and 1960s, became a flashpoint between the Ghanaian and Guinean governments. This article explores the conflict over Kwame Nkrumah’s burial, examining how interested parties across West Africa attempted to assert their own authority over Nkrumah’s body. Both the Ghanaian and Guinean governments attempted to define Nkrumah and his political legacy to secure their own legitimacy. Was Nkrumah a son of Nkroful, Ghana or Africa? Was Nkrumah first and foremost a nationalist, a Pan-Africanist or a socialist? Did Ghana, Guinea, or the family of Nkrumah himself have the authority to take ownership of his body, his ideas, his legacy?