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Nkrumah, 1962 (credit: Marc and Evelyne Bernheim/Woodfin Camp and Associates)

(born September 1909, Nkroful, Gold Coast — died April 27, 1972, Bucharest, Rom.) Nationalist leader and president of Ghana (1960 – 66). Nkrumah worked as a teacher before going to the U.S. to study literature and socialism (1935 – 45). In 1949 he formed the Convention People's Party, which advocated nonviolent protests, strikes, and noncooperation with the British authorities. Elected prime minister of the Gold Coast (1952 – 60) and then president of independent Ghana, Nkrumah advanced a policy of Africanization and built new roads, schools, and health facilities. After 1960 he devoted much of his time to the Pan-African movement, at the expense of Ghana's economy. Following an attempted coup in 1962, he increased authoritarian controls, withdrew from public life, increased contacts with communist countries, and wrote works on political philosophy. With the country facing economic ruin, he was deposed in 1966 while visiting Beijing.

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