"...He imagines miserable failures to be great successes and a credit to him. He confesses the loss of nearly a million dollars of poor people’s money and that there is nothing left but debts. He confesses the utter loss of every vessel of his, “Black Star Line,” and then boasts of the success of his shipping line. In one breath he says that all three of his ships are gone; that there is nothing left out of nearly $1,000,000 but debts. In another breath he states that “if it hadn’t been for our enemies, we would now have twenty vessels instead of three.” He still seems under the delusion that he has three. He has a court reception, divides Africa in which he or his movement hasn’t one foot of ground into duchies and makes “knights” and “ladies” and “dukes.” Those presented to him must bend the knee before him. Arrayed in royal garb, he and his court assemble on an elevated dais while the common people are below, kept away from him by armed guards. Here is clearly a case of delusions of grandeur. Could a symptom be more characteristic?...
"...But as soon as Nkrumah won independence and drove the British out of Ghana, one of his first acts was to sign the Black Star Line into being. Nkrumah told them, "You laughed at Garvey, but you will never laugh at us." And he signed in the Black Star Line, which was to travel the world as the the ocean-going fleets of Ghana, which still exist even today despite all the attacks, internal and external, that it has undergone...
Ghana, John La Rose and African revolution
ON March 6 this year, the people of Ghana marked the 50th year of their independence from British colonial rule. Ghana, the former Gold Coast, was the first British colony in Africa to achieve that revolutionary feat. That epochal event occurred in 1957, three years to that of Nigeria in 1960 and 10 years after India set the pace in 1947. The political forces and movements that facilitated the anti-colonial struggle in Africa were initiated by African-Caribbean and African-American radical thinkers and activists in the early 20th century. They included W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Aurelius Garvey, Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, C.L.R. James, and John La Rose.
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"...At Ghana's independence, Nkrumah paid tribute to Garvey by choosing the black star symbol for the nation's flag and naming Ghana's football team, The Black Stars. Padmore from Trinidad and Tobago did not only coordinate the anti-colonial movement from London. He came to reside in Ghana after 1957 and until his death in 1963, Padmore was adviser to Nkrumah. C.L.R. James, the world renowned Marxist scholar, was virtually a consultant to Nkrumah and he visited Ghana many times to give talks and address political rallies. James warned Nkrumah of the dire consequences of sacking a chief judge who gave judgement against the government.
Radical thinkers and artists from North America and the Caribbean were regularly hosted by Ghana. Among them were Malcom X Shabazz, James Baldwin, and Maya Angelou from the US...