Kwame Nkrumah. Vision and Tragedy

2. London Interlude

39 2 LONDON INTERLUDE THE MAIN SOURCE OF INFORMATION about Nkrumah’s stay in London is his autobiography, and it must be remembered that this was not a carefully researched work of scholarship but was dictated in odd moments when he was already Prime Minister and leading his country towards independence. Consequently, there are understandably a number of minor inaccuracies and there is a tendency to over-emphasize the role he played in certain situations, and to give a messianic flavour to his recollections. In describing how he sailed out of New York, he states ‘I saw the Statue of Liberty with her arm raised as if in personal farewell . . . You have opened my eyes to the true meaning of liberty. . . I shall never rest until I have carried your message to Africa’.1 Nkrumah arrived in Liverpool on June 1945 and travelled to London. He had written to George Padmore, who met him at Euston Station and obtained a room for him in the West African Students Union hostel. Padmore was by this time a giant on the Pan African scene who wielded great influence in the milieu that had shaped Nkrumah’s views in America. Yet, surprisingly, Nkrumah merely refers to him at this stage as a West Indian journalist who lived in London and who had aroused his interest. Finding the students’ hostel cold and unwelcoming, Nkrumah set about looking for lodgings. In the immediate aftermath of VE 40 Day and before the general election of early July, London was enjoying a phase of euphoria and hope, but it still presented a hostile image to a black man looking for lodgings. The devastation caused by German bombing raids and the V1 and V2 attacks on London was all too obvious, and greatly exacerbated the postwar shortage of housing and accommodation. Like many others, Nkrumah trudged round north London suffering one rebuff after another. During his wanderings he met Ako Adjei whom he had known at Lincoln University and who was now reading law in London; Adjei was later to play a key role in Nkrumah’s future career. Eventually, they found a sympathetic landlady at 60 Burghley Road, Tufnell Park, where Nkrumah stayed until he left for the Gold Coast in November 1947. He appreciated the kindness and thoughtfulness of the family. In spite of the severity of food rationing in post-war England, they usually left him food when he was planning to come home late, and in return he did all the washing-up. In London, he aimed to read law and complete a doctoral thesis. He therefore enrolled at Gray’s Inn and also at the London School of Economics. He met Professor Harold Laski and also started to study logical positivism under Professor A. J. Ayer. Almost at once he became deeply involved in the political and welfare activities of the West African Students Union, and when Padmore asked him to help with preparations for the Pan African Conference, he readily neglected his academic studies. The Pan African movement, after the highlight of the second conference in Paris in 1919, how slowly extended its influence. In 1931 a conference in London resolved that ‘black folk be treated as men’ and also passed a resolution highly critical of General Smuts who ‘preached goodwill, while standing on the backs of millions of Africans’. In the 1930s Padmore had seen the Popular Front period as a great opportunity for the Pan African movement to achieve its aims of independence for black people without LONDON INTERLUDE 41 42 KWAME NKRUMAH - VISION AND TRAGEDY being tied to either fascism or communism. During the Second World War the Pan African Federation had flourished under the leadership of T. Ras Makonnen and Dr. P. Milliard – both from British Guiana (Guyana) – but it fell to Padmore to play the main role in organizing the important Pan African Conference of 1945. Nkrumah was joint secretary with him. At the planning stage, Du Bois, who was still in the US, felt stronglythattheconferenceshouldbeheldinAfrica.However,this problem, together with the differences between the traditionally cautious views of Du Bois and the more radical views of the group around Padmore and James, was skillfully ironed out by Padmore. Eventually, through the generosity of Makonnen, the conference took place in Manchester from 15 to 19 October 1945, with ninety delegates and eleven observers – not 200 as Nkrumah states. This was the most significant of all...