The Lions in Africa: Lincoln University Alumni in Nkrumah's Ghana, 1951–66

In this paper, I examine the experiences of two Black American expats, former Lincoln University classmates of Kwame Nkrumah. I argue how pivotal Lincoln University was as a testing ground for cross-cultural interactions with Black American and African students, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s during the rise of anticolonial nationalism. Then, I trace these two men, neither of whom were actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement but who decided to relocate on the eve of Ghanaian independence. They both contributed to institution-building in Ghana and reflect, in different ways, the underappreciated legacies of Black emigrants in Nkrumah-era Ghana. Moreover, their experiences complicate past analyses of the Black American presence in mid-twentieth century Ghana as either political radicals or apolitical ideologues. Finally, I also pay close attention to on-the-ground dynamics between Black American expats and Ghanaians. This research draws on personal letters, college yearbooks, newspaper articles, oral histories, memoirs, published and unpublished interviews from collections onsite at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture and Research, digital collections from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Lincoln University, and the HistoryMakers Digital Archive.