So it was on this day, March 6, 1957 - forty-nine years ago - that Kwame Nkrumah gave a famous midnight speech at the Accra Polo Grounds proclaiming the Gold Coast's independence from Great Britain, to be henceforth known as Ghana, in memory of the first great African empire.
This was the first African nation to proclaim independence from a colonial power and was merely the first domino to be pushed in a long chain of nations that would over the following decades follow in Ghana's footsteps. Already having a keen eye on his United States of Africa, Nkrumah stated, "Ghana's independence is meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of Africa." Indeed, Ghana's constitution was probably the first one ever written that explicitly announced that it would give up its sovereignty to another country: a united Africa.
So every March 6, Ghanaians celebrate their freedom and Africa's as a whole. There are parades, celebrations, speeches and parties and everyone gets the day off. I myself was looking forward to going to Independence Square to see the events - so much so that I delayed my trip by a few days just to see it.
In the end, I missed the balloons, speeches, soldiers, tanks and schoolchildren (Although apparently President Kufour's speech was a real snoozer). I was so tired in the morning I didn't get up until 11 and only left the Hostel to go to the bank and eat a mango. However, in the evening, the Carleton students (minus Hannah, who is in Niger) and Felicity from Australia had Ethiopian food for dinner - a first for me - and talked about the kings of the only African Empire that withstood the might of Europe. So in a way, we were still celebrating Africa, no?
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