Kwame N'Krumah, as
President of the Republic of Ghana that he labored from 1945 until 1957 to
create was more often than not opposed for his Messianic Christian initiatives,
.... such as the successful lobbying and evolving an alliance of nations to
condemn racial discrimination that was so very widespread in the Americas,
Caribbean and Europe. Yet, there were so many thousands of people in power in
places like London and New York who suspected anyone espousing Messianic
Christianity, such as free higher education and medical services, was likely a
Marxist pawn or worse.
Born again scholars of
testaments espoused by functional leaders up from slavery and colonialism will
not fail to recall that following World War II, the scourge of racism was
addressed by scholars and jurists mainly to condemn the anti-Semitism that
generated the extermination of some six million European Jews, Gypsies, Slavs
and others in Europe (including Africans)
officially classified as racially inferior. The 20th century horror
reaped, ... reminded the world of what 19th century great minds had sowed.
But for many men of means
in Africa, America and Europe (including
some West European Jews) --- their
inherited attitudes and behavior toward people of African heritage was less
racist than it was economic necessity or paternalism to protect the less
developed from worse evils such as Marxism. In fact, so it was very
frequently argued by the New York Times and other mass media .....................
.... the Africans
(including African-Americans)
were potential victims of the communist on-slaught being led by the Soviet
Union (unspoken
thoughts: because they were White and thus
inherently superior to people of African heritage who needed
"protectorate status"
to be
"saved")
In fact, to the
consternation of many great men like Senator Barry Goldwater, ... President John F.
Kennedy (founder of the Peace Corps and
welcomed as a Christian manifest by President N'Krumah)
proclaimed in 1963 that "racial
segregation is morally wrong." And many
then hated him also and concluded the Kennedy's simply did not understand that
men like N'Krumah and King, even though baptized and educated as Christians,
.... were no
longer serving the cause of Christ but international atheism?
Senator Goldwater, like his
silver tongued hero, the famed Louisiana Senator Judah P. Benjamin
(a man of property)
who helped Senator Jefferson Davis launch a Civil War to maintain chattel
slavery --- soon uttered the famous quote that gained him a nomination for
President:
"Extremism
(implied: destabilizing governments such as Ghana, the Congo and oil-rich Nigeria) in
defense of liberty (implied: western
economic interests) is no vice, but a
virtue?"
The important experts in
London, New York and Washington agreed that N'Krumah, like Fidel Castro had become
a Soviet pawn by
befriending American enemies like Russians, Cubans, Chinese, Egyptians (like Nassar), Indians
(especially Nehru), etc. Patrice Lumumba, a
friend supported by N'Krumah, was hated and murdered by western interests
because of fear that he might somehow be a Soviet agent in Africa.
But, like Martin Luther King, ... Kwame N'Krumah in
his early years, as a minister, had studied, preached and taught the gospel to
African-American congregations of Messianic believers in places like
Philadelphia, .... where some seven decades later many scholars now praise him
for having devoted his life to spreading the good news of relative change.
African theology roots
did not have any meaning to men like William Saffire, --- firmly rooted in the
doctrine: "the enemy of my enemy is my
friend, and those who are not the enemy of my enemy are my enemies."
Dr. N'Krumah's refusal to denounce communism or take
sides in the cold war angered those powers of persuasion that wanted him to
discard his abolitionist ministry and join their side in condemning the East
European Bloc of nations offering him aid and trade. So
he was feared as a potential threat --- as JESUS was.
By contrast, John F.
Kennedy understood even before he was President and initiation of the Peace
Corps that Messianic initiatives were far more appealing to Africans than
communism. To be sure, Marxism was a doctrine without substance beyond
higher education academic circles in London, Paris and New York. N'Krumah was
perhaps the first African to embrace and welcome the Peace Corps as an omen of
the good news being spread to villages where people lacked linkages to knowledge
and understanding of a better life. Communism offered nothing to people
and places where nothing of value existed.
To appreciate N'Krumah's ministry
(in the context of Messianic Christianity),
one has to understand that for thousands of years most people (especially
Africans) most of the time
believed slavery was not bad and in fact profitable. During the
entire era of colonialism by the Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Turks and Europeans it
was always rationalized as good for the subjected Africans. Yet, the light
that emerged with the philosophy of Jesus did not die and generation by
generation grew in the brightness that finally proclaimed
"life, liberty and pursuit of happiness"
also for "the least of us."
Prior to the age of Lincoln, America's often cited
Judeo-Christian heritage not only included slavery but the sources of it. Soon
after Messianic believers like William Wilberforce finally ended the cursed
institution, a new breed of greed emerged to rationalize colonialism as a moral
necessity "the White man's burden." The conservative press corps,
epitomized by men like Henry Morton Stanley in America
(from its very beginning to-date)
never shed a tear or published a word for the liberty of
people of African heritage.
Most often, the people of power most often and loudly
denouncing their own loss of liberties, ... not only opposed abolitionists but
anyone proposing liberty for Africans. At best, American economic,
political, social conservatives remained silent during every single struggle by
Messianic minded Christians including the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela in
1964. So, in the minds of many money interests, Kwame N'Krumah was somehow
contributing to the demise of liberty rather than enhancing it.
Even as late as the Reagan-Bush Administrations an
Assistant Secretary of State for Africa .......
reasoned that colonialism had been good for Africa. And many Africans agreed even to the extent that supporting
the African National Congress and other liberation struggles in Southern Africa,
as N'Krumah sought to do, was deemed morally wrong. Many American
ideologues went to Africa in droves as mercenary pilots and soldiers to help
racist South Africa fight the Cubans in Angola (inclusive of Cuban and Brazilian)
doctors, health care personnel, teachers, civil engineers and other kinds of
help never offered or sent by the western nations fearing a Marxist takeover in
Africa.
Prime Minister Kofi Busia,
a sociologist by training, also a minister and political scholar, was installed in 1969 by
popular election three years after the overthrow of N'Krumah. He was embraced by
London and Washington because he was anti-N'Krumah and blamed him for all the
economic woes that befell Ghana when the eighteen licensed world cocoa brokers
(in London and New York),......
...
were able to conspire and decrease the price of cocoa from $850 per ton to less
than $300 per ton that quickly created economic havoc and hatred in the streets.
Ghana's thousands of very
vocal rich market women and timber merchants in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi and
other urbanized centers all agreed their fortunes had been dissipated by the
rule of Kwame N'Krumah. Few knew or cared about the truth.
New York and London based
interests were used to crush Ghana for many reasons, but the condemnation of racism
in Africa as a method and means to pressure property interests in Angola,
Rhodesia, and South Africa, ... evoked the most reaction. For this act
alone, more than any other actions on his part, -- he was suspected and
condemned as a threat to western interests rather than a light of
Christianity to which he, Dr. King and hundreds of others, like Dr. W.E.B.
DuBois had devoted their
lives in study and activism.
The American ambassador,
Sylvester Williams, an African-American professional, knew N'Krumah was a devout
Christian activist, no less so than Thurgood Marshall and other aspiring
students of Lincoln University in the 1930s. Williams was in a position to
speak truth to powers above him but feared to do so less he also be suspected of
being a
"Nazarene."
Perhaps Williams was a affirmative action appointment by President Lyndon
Johnson as an Ambassador to deceive N'Krumah into trusting him and the United
States, ... unaware of the plot being executed to overthrow a democratically
elected government (1957 to 1966). Johnson's paranoia about
Africans was fueled by his daily preoccupation in
"fighting communism"
in Asia, the Caribbean and South America. He and his advisors never
understood or accepted any form of nationalism anywhere, and certainly dismissed
Pan-Africanism as a Russian plot.
Dr. King was N'Krumah's
friend and admirer and so was Adam Clayton Powell and others who preached the
gospel and engaged themselves from the pulpits, streets and elected offices in
the battle to uplift people of African heritage to the life, liberty and pursuit
of happiness long denied.
So, Williams, like Peter, remained silent and denied a
great believer, as ideologues in the American media, such as William Saffire of
the New York Times, --- called for the crucifixion of a man who did them no harm but
came in the name of a belief (JESUS) they did not know or care about.
Shortly,
after the declaration against racism was pushed through the United Nations, Kwame N'Krumah was
overthrown by a military coup of 1966 by disloyal Generals who had been
powerless enlisted men in the British colonial forces prior to independence and
promotion to the officer corps created by "Prime
Minister Kwame N'Krumah."
Neither Dr. King or Dr.
N'Krumah lived to see Africa free of colonialism, Mandela free and the Republic
of South Africa made whole; but, King spoke for them both when he proclaimed
that "I may not get there with you, but I
fear no man because mine eyes have seen the promised land and I
Thank GOD, thank GOD, thank GOD Almighty."
Yet, there were so many thousands of people in power in
places like London and New York who suspected anyone espousing Messianic
Christianity, such as free higher education and medical services, was likely a
Marxist pawn or worse.