Views from West Africa

AbstractIn the 1950s, many Ghanaians identified with African Americans as they read about events involving American racial violence in Ghanaian newspapers. Yet the transnational connections appearing in those periodicals varied in depth, intensity, and sincerity depending on their political or commercial connections. This study analyzes the reactions in key Ghanaian newspapers, such as those affiliated with Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party, the British-owned Daily Graphic, and the Ashanti Pioneer, to key moments in 1950s American race relations, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the events in Little Rock, and the infamous ‘Orange Juice’ incident involving discrimination against the Ghanaian minister of finance. By demonstrating that the Pioneer more often covered the personal angles of such events, while the tones of CPP-affiliated papers and even the Daily Graphic vacillated based on changing political needs, this study both shows the complicated nature of transnational racial identifications as they flowed west across the Atlantic and reveals the promises and limits of Ghanaian connections to members of the African diaspora during the decolonizing period in Ghana.KEYWORDS: GhanaKwame Nkrumahcivil rightsracial identificationsdecolonization Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Telegram, Roger Ross and Hyman Bloom to Department of State, “Gold Coast Newspapers,” July 27, 1951, 2, 945H.61/7-2751, Reel 27, CFBA 1950–54.2 Among others, see Borstelmann, Cold War and the Color Line and Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights.3 Treatments of African American views of foreign relations, Africa, and Ghana include Anderson, Eyes Off the Prize; Anderson, Bourgeois Radicals; Gaines, American Africans in Ghana; Grimm, “Gazing Toward Ghana”; Meriwether, Proudly We can be Africans; Plummer, Rising Wind; Plummer, ed. Window on Freedom; and Von Eschen, Race Against Empire.4 Jones-Quartey, Summary History, 24, 57.5 Faringer, Press Freedom in Africa, 44–5.6 Allman, “The Youngmen,” 279.7 Israel, “The Afrocentric Perspective,” 427; Hargrove, “Ashanti Pioneer,” 31.8 Jones-Quartey, Ghana Press, 28.9 Ibid., 34.10 Ibid..11 Gadzekpo, “Fifty Years,” 93–4.12 “World News in Brief,” Ashanti Pioneer, March 22, 1956, Reel 14, SCDCA.13 “World News in Brief,” Ashanti Pioneer, May 4, 1956, 5, Reel 14, SCDCA.14 “World News in Brief,” Ashanti Pioneer, March 23, 1956, 5, Reel 14, SCDCA.15 Ibid.16 United States Information Agency, “World-wide Press Comments on the Racial Problem in the U.S., 1956,” April 10, 1956, p. 30, Box 8, Office of Research, Intelligence Bulletins, Memorandums, and Summaries, 1954–56, USIA-NARA.17 Ibid., 30–1.18 Ibid., 31.19 Henry Lowrie, “Negro Student’s Case Now People’s Case,” Ashanti Pioneer, March 7, 1956, 2, Reel 14, SCDCA.20 Ibid.21 Ibid.22 “High Schools Remain Closed,” Ashanti Pioneer, September 16, 1958, Reel 15, SCDCA.23 “Little rock, Arkansas,” Ashanti Pioneer, October 14, 1958, p. 5, Reel 15, SCDCA.24 “Race Integration Ordered,” Ghana Times, January 12, 1959, p. 4, Reel 1, SCDCA.25 “Global Glimpses,” Ashanti Pioneer, May 28, 1959, p. 5, Reel 15, SCDCA.26 “Little Rock Takes Negroes in High School,” Ghana Times, August 14, 1959, 7, “Police Beat Back Anti-Integration Crowd,” Ghana Times, August 14, 1959, 4, both on Reel 1, SCDCA.27 “Police Beat Back Anti-Integration Crowd,” Ghana Times, August 14, 1959, 4.28 “Bombs in Little Rock,” Ghana Times, September 9, 1959, 4, Reel 1, SCDCA.29 “Little Rock Again,” The Ghanaian Times, July 13, 1960, 9, Reel 5, SCDCA.30 Isaac Eshun, “An ‘on the spot’ study of—The Little Rock Scene,” Daily Graphic, July 7, 1959, 5, Reel 11, SCDCA.31 Ibid.32 Ibid.33 Ibid.34 Ibid.35 Ibid.36 Isaac Eshun, “The Little Rock Scene: It Requires Repentance and Forgiveness,” Daily Graphic, July 8, 1959, 5, Reel 11, SCDCA.37 Eshun, “An ‘on the Spot’ Study of—The Little Rock Scene,” 5.38 Eshun, “The Little Rock Scene,” 5.39 Ibid.40 Edwards, Newspapermen, 206.41 Telegram, Roger Ross and Hyman Bloom to Department of State, “Gold Coast Newspapers,” July 27, 1951, 6, 945H.61/7-2751, Reel 27, CFBA 1950–54.42 Ibid.43 Faringer, Press Freedom, 44–5.44 Chick, “Ashanti Times,” 88.45 For the formal U.S.-Ghana government relationship in the 1950s, see Johns and Statler, eds., The Eisenhower Administration; Montgomery, “The Eyes of the World”; Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans; Nwaubani, Decolonization in West Africa; White, Jr., Holding the Line; and White, Jr., “Big Ballin’!?” One account of Soviet-Ghanaian relations is Mazov, A Distant Front.46 “Gbedemah Meets Colour Bar in United States,” The Ghana Evening News, October 10, 1957, 1, Reel 20, SCDCA.47 Telegram, Wilson Flake to Department of State, No. 147, October 10, 1957, 1, 845J.411/10-1057, Reel 27, CFBA 1955–1959.48 Ibid., 1.49 Ibid.50 Ibid., 1–2.51 Ibid., 2.52 Telegram, Wilson Flake to Department of State, No. 148, October 10, 1957, 1, 845J.411/10-1057, Reel 27, CFBA 1955–1959.53 Telegram, Stephen Gebelt to Secretary of State, "Restriction of Freedom of the Press in Ghana," No. 166, September 9, 1960, p. 1, 945J.61/9-960, Reel 10, CFG 1960–1963.54 Ibid., 1.55 Ibid.56 John P. Meagher to Secretary of State, "Ashanti Pioneer (Control) Instrument Revoked," No. 745, June 1, 1961, 945J.61/6-161, Reel 10, CFG 1960–1963.57 Faringer, Press Freedom, 19, 21.58 Ibid. 19.59 Gebelt, “Restriction of Freedom of the Press in Ghana,” 1.60 Editorial, “‘Time’ Magazine to Note,” Ghana Times, October 29, 1959, 2, Reel 3, SCDCA.61 Editorial, “Heed This Warning,” Ghana Times, June 30, 1960, 2, Reel 5, SCDCA.62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 Fred Zusy, “Race Troubles in New York,” Ashanti Pioneer, August 18, 1959, 2, Reel 16, SCDCA.65 Ibid.66 Simon Kavanaugh, “The Rev. Martin Luther King,” Ashanti Pioneer, September 10, 1960, 2, Reel 17, SCDCA.67 Ibid.68 Plummer, Rising Wind, 258, 278–9.69 Gaines, African Americans in Ghana, 68.70 “Kwame Nkrumah’s Text—June 5th, Commencement Exercises, Lincoln University,” June 5, 1951, 5–6. Box 68, Folder 290, HMB Papers.71 Gaines, African Americans in Ghana, 90.72 For Louis Armstrong’s visits see Davenport, Jazz Diplomacy and Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World.Additional informationNotes on contributorsKevin E. GrimmKevin E. Grimm, Humanities Department, Regent University, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23464, United States of America