Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park

Looking across Kwame Nkrumah Memorial park

Location: Between Usher Town and Victoriaborg
Just off 28th February Road
Cost 2009:
6 New cedis For Foreign Adults
2 New Cedis for native Ghanaians

Kwame Nkrumah was born in the village of Nkroful in Nzima on a Saturday thought to be in the year 1912 9 they were not so obsessed about times and dates in those days). By his own admission in his autobiography (Panaf books Ltd 1957) he was a bit of a lone wolf and at times a willful child.

He trained as a teacher in Achimota in Accra , then moved to America where he stayed for ten years. There he experienced some austere times being at one stage penniless in Harlem new York

In 1945 he left for London with the purpose of studying law and finishing his PhD in philosophy. He thus rented accommodation with a friend at 60, Burghley rd, Tufnell Park London and enrolled at Grays Inn.

Kwame Nkrumah's visible start in politics can be traced to 1947 when a prominent lawyer Dr Danquah made Kwame Nkrumah the secretary of his political party called the "United Gold Coast Convention". Dr Danquah was involved in discussions with the British Government on how Ghanaians might have more representation in their own country; Ghana at that time still being part of a British Colony.

In 1949 Nkrumah broke away to form his own party "the Convention Peoples Party" with the political theme " self government now ". He was later arrested by the British Government which backfired somewhat on the British , by mobilizing support for him amongst native Ghanaians.

Nkrumah's party won nearly all the seats in a legislative Assembly when elections were held in 1951. Nkrumah was subsequently the first Ghanaian president of Ghana from 1951-1957. On the 5th march 1957 the British flag was replaced with Red, Yellow & Green ,with a Black star in the middle as power was peacefully transferred from Britain to Ghana & Ghana achieved total political independence from the British.

It wasn not by any means plane sailing for Nkrumah , with hard economic times although it wasn't all Nkrumah's fault since from the start of his reign there was a global drop in the price of Cocoa of which was one of Ghana's chief source of revenue.For instance in 1955 Cocoa amounted to 68% of all exports.

A military coup occurred in 1966 while Nkrumah was abroad, ending his political contribution to Ghana. Nkrumah is revered however by Ghanians especially over the detachment from being ruled by the British & the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park & Museum is dedicated to him. Also Dr Kwame Nkrumah's body is buried at the center of the structure seen in the photo.

The very helpful Abena demonstrating items for sale in the memorial shop

The Kwame Nkrumah memorial park was found to be an attractive park , providing an open space for a breath of fresh air and to get away from the hustle & bustle of the roads just on th outside of the park, & nearby Mokola market.

Also in the park was to be found the park shop with a range of good quality books including a Twi/English dictionary which i found particularly useful being somewhat more guttural than the polite one i already had.

The small museum in the park had a display of photographs showing Nkrumah with Ian Smith of Rhodesia as it was

Looking down one of the small alley ways in the cultural center

Very conveniently about fifty yards adjacent from the Nkrumah Memorial park is the "arts, also called cultural center" here there is a small labyrinth of small windowless shops having every type of wooden carved wall plaque you could think of & leather items, such as a leather brief case which I bought for 25 new cedis, they wanted 50 for it but my brother-in-law helped barter them down.

Apparently if the sellers see you are an "oburoni" or "foreigner" they double the price, so as a rough rule of thumb whatever price quote you, half it and start from there.

The Nkrumah memorial park is not a bad detination to head for ,since you have the park, the Arts center and the Mokola market is also nearby giving you three places of interest to look at all in virtually the same spot.

What we did is get our taxi driver Emanuel to park while we looked around the Nkrumah & Arts center & then met back up with my mother-in-law who was looking around the adjacent Mokola area.