The Alarm in Africa

Dr. Nkrumah reminding Ghanaians to look forward

 Beep! Beep! Beep! The sound from my alarm clock awakes me, but like many other college students I ignore it and hit the snooze button. I sleep for another hour before realizing I will not get to eat breakfast since I decided to shower instead. Boomer. The time is now 9:30 in the morning and we began a new day of learning. Today I would like to call it Pan Africanism Day since we learned about the great Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana after gaining independence from the UK in 1957. Many Ghanaians also knew this day as traditional wear day as well. They wore their traditional African clothing with many patterns and colors and expressed the importance of this day every Friday.  We also went to go visit the Kwame Nkrumah Museum, which was beautiful and peaceful. We learned about his aspirations and dreams for Africa in the late 1950s, early 1960s, to unite and take ownership over their own natural resources so they could one day have the chance to be a powerful continent.  I can see now how this could be seen as a threat to the Great 8 (United States of America, Russia, Italy, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Canada) economic systems at that time. Meanwhile, we happen to run into some school children too. Incredible I must say. They were very timid at first, but once we showed interest in talking and interacting with them they were welcoming. My classmates and I captured many photos with the children and fell in love with them instantly. 

It reminded me of my family and the way my cousins run to me after not seeing me for months. The children’s teacher later came to the bus to thank my classmates and I for coming to Ghana and he addressed all of us as “whites”. As shocking as this may sound anyone who is not from Africa was considered to be a “bruni” or “obruni bibi”. As the day went on we continued to discuss Pan Africanism and ended up touring W.E.B. Dubois’s home he lived in while in Ghana in 1961 through 1963, which was given to him after arriving in Ghana to assist Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah believed they both had an aligned dream of African unity. Dubois researched, wrote, and created the African Encyclopedia.  It impresses me how such two men could create and embrace such a strong movement. This movement was moving positively until W.E.B. Dubois death in 1963 and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s death in 1972. Now I wonder would there be this great African continent if they continued to encourage and educate the African people about unity and liberty from other countries during the 1950s and 60s. Or is it too late because the African people of today ignore it and hit the snooze button even though they are awaken in their poverty lifestyles day after day? It is alarm that some notice, but many wake up to. Keeping true to one’s values and beliefs is hard enough especially when they are oppressed and systemized by these “great” countries to think they are right and African countries are “uncivilized” to know the difference. The time spent today made me understand that there is an alarm in Africa; we just need the African nations to wake up because if they continue to snooze they will continue to sleep in poverty.

The Wall of W.E.B Dubois and African Leaders