I was born on April 19, 1930, in Gold Coast, alongside my twin brother. Are crying was, in my mother’s words relentless, or that was what our father had told us. I am Xorlali and my brother is named Akwete we are the children of a wealthy, educated Ghanaian. My father is a part of the United Gold Coast Convention, he joined in 1947. He is fighting for freedom for Ghana, or as the British call us the Gold Coast. The independence movement was started because the citizens of the Gold Coast realized that stools were being controlled by the British.
All the things they said were being controlled by the British. Some Africans said that the British were limiting and controlling the powers of important political leaders. Also, how the British were dividing educated and uneducated Africans because the educated disagreed with the British. The British didn’t want the uneducated to listen to the educated and rebel against them. World War 2 left Europe in economic troubles, they were repairing damages from war. They could not handle controlling Africa and also deal with their postwar problems. Yet, they still wouldn’t let us free. There was a riot in the Gold Coast and my mother got hurt in the chaos, my brother and I were 15 at the time. She later died since she couldn’t get medical attention quick enough.
My father was devastated and 2 years later he joined the United Gold Coast Convention to get our freedom from the British. He wanted me and my brother to have a better life. My father wouldn’t tell us much about the United Gold Coast Convention and what he did in it. My brother and I learned most of what we knew about the Gold Coast Decolonization Era from books my mother had. My mother came from a wealthy and educated family, she was against British rule and often told us stories about important Ghanaian leaders. After she passed away, my father was determined on decolonizing the Gold Coast from the British. He said that the Europeans were people who only cared about money and they didn’t care how they got it.
127 our experts are availableright now
Even if it meant destroying the land, the resources and families in it. He didn’t tell us much more than that. Most of what I knew as a child was from books, so that is why during my time at university I learned as much as I could. My father would always tell us that, we were too young to be involved in a political party. As a child, I would get angry that he wouldn’t tell us anything. I wanted to be like my mother, standing up from African rights. My father told me not to talk about that because it could get me killed. He said that the British didn’t want as talking about anti-colonization ideas because they didn’t want the uneducated to learn about these ideas. Since the uneducated made up most of the population the British didn’t want them to rebel.
The independence movement was a hard struggle. We had many strikes and protests, along with a couple of riots. On February 28, 1948, a nonviolent protest took place in an intersection nearby the Governor’s Office. Ex-servicemen were protesting against overdue compensations and ignored agreements after they had fought with the British in World War 2. Instead of keeping it a peaceful protest the police fired at them, killing 3. This lead to a course of more protest and riots. This time was referred to as the 1948 Disturbance.
This also started the development of the independence movement for the Gold Coast. In 1948, it was my brother and I’s 18th birthday. We left to go to college at Lincoln University, the same university that Kwame Nkrumah went to. He was a well known leader of the United Gold Coast Convention. He is not the founder of the party, that was J. B. Danquah. Danquah created the Gold Coast Youth Conference. It criticized foreign rules and policies. It was later called the United Gold Coast Convention. Nkrumah was still an important leader for Ghana’s fight for independence.
On March 12, 1948, leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention, J.B, Danquah, Kwame Nkrumah, William Ofori Atta, Ebenezer Ako Adjei, Obetsebi Lamptey and Edward Akufo Addo, were put under arrest for causing the 1948 Disturbance. They were arrested but later released about a month later. On March 6, 1957, the British Gold Coast colony became free. We were Ghana not the Gold Coast colony anymore, we fought for many long years for our independence and now we have it. We were stable economically because we could profit our cocoa production, along with gold mining production.
5 years after my brother and I returned to Gold Coast in 1953, we were 23 at the time. While my brother and I were gone, Ghana had its first election on February 8, 1951. Nkrumah won and this showed the support the Convention Peoples’ Party had. The Convention Peoples’ Party was the party Nkrumah founded in June of 1949. The party’s motto was having a self-government and taking nonviolent action. Nkrumah once said, ¨I have often said, the party and the nation are one and the same, namely: the Convention People’s Party is Ghana and is Ghana the Convention People’s Party.¨ This quote shows how People’s Party Convention was an important party in Ghana. Nkrumah was elected for prime minister of Ghana.
Then in 1960 Ghana became a republic and we elected Nkrumah as president. Ghana was the first Sub Saharan colony that achieved independence. This paved the way for other colonies to fight for independence. It is 2018 and I am 78 years old. It has been about 50 years since Ghana first got its independence. Gold and cocoa is still our most profited production. It sustained an economic boom. In 2010 an offshore oil manufacturing began and it helped to increase our growing economy. In 1992 Ghana evolved into a multi-party democracy. That is why we are thought of as one of the most stable countries in West Africa. This was the sacrifice and hard work of many Africans that finally lead up to this.
