 | This article is missing information about the 1950 general strike across the country for independence and more info generally.(October 2024) |
The Positive Action campaign was a series of political protests and strikes in pre-independence Ghana; a political activism campaign [ year needed ].
At midnight on 6 January 1950 the Trade Union Congress (TUC) declared a general strike triggering Kwame Nkrumah to announce the start of the Positive Action campaign at a mass rally on 8 January. [1]
Positive Action was launched to fight imperialism and demand "self government now" and independence from colonial rule by the British. through a campaign of nonviolence and political education of the people.
However, when Nkrumah launched the campaign, riots erupted throughout the capital, Accra. [2] [3] [4] [5]
The response of the British colonialists was to declare a state of emergency banning newspapers, including two published by Nkrumah. and making sweeping arrests.
The response of the British colonialists was to declare a state of emergency banning newspapers, including two published by Nkrumah. and making sweeping arrests.
As well as Kwame Nkrumah, others were arrested and jailed including:
However, when Nkrumah launched the campaign, riots erupted throughout the capital, Accra. [2] [3] [4] [5]
The Positive Action campaign accelerated the march towards independence. Nkrumah was elected leader of Government Business in the Legislative Assembly in February 1951 and released from prison to take up this role. Walter Sisulu, Secretary General of the African National Congress sent a letter of congratulations which was published in the Accra Evening News, a newspaper founded by Nkrumah on 28 February 1951. [6]
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Francis Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained independence from Britain. He was then the first Prime Minister and then the President of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.
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The Big Six were six leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), one of the leading political parties in the British colony of the Gold Coast, known after independence as Ghana. They were detained by the colonial authorities in 1948 following disturbances that led to the killing of three World War II veterans. They are pictured on the front of the Ghana cedi notes.
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Akua Asabea Ayisi was a feminist, former High Court Judge and the first female Ghanaian journalist. During the rise of the Ghanaian independence movement, Akua Asabea Ayisi trained as a journalist with Mabel Dove-Danquah and Kwame Nkrumah, who would later become the country's first prime minister and president.
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John Kofi Barku Tettegah (1930–2009) was a Ghanaian trade unionist, diplomat, and politician. He held many influential positions in Ghana's government especially during the Nkrumah government, where he served as general-secretary of the Gold Coast Trades Union Congress (TUC), as a Convention People's Party (CPP) central committee member, and secretary-general of the All-African Trade Union Federation. He was influential to Kwame Nkrumah's domestic and foreign policy, and remains one of the most influential political organizers in Ghanaian labor history.
Bankole Awoonor-Renner was a Ghanaian politician, journalist, anti-colonialist and Pan-Africanist. In 1921 Awoonor-Renner travelled to the United States (US) to study journalism at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Whilst studying in the US Awoonor-Renner joined The Communist Party.
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