The Challenge of African Americans

The recent surge of scholarship on the Pan-Africanism of Kwame Nkrumah’s First Republic and Ghana’s contemporary post-Cold War liberal state has emphasized Ghana’s historical relationship with the African diaspora, mainly African Americans. Reflecting a larger trend in the historiography of post-colonial Ghana, this theme has been almost completely overlooked during the interim period of 1966–1981. This paper addresses this gap, by analyzing how Kofi Busia’s Second Republic (1969–1972) was perceived by the African American press. Taking this approach gives insight into how Ghana’s post-Nkrumah (and pre-Rawlings) leadership tried to direct sustained goodwill from the diaspora towards their political ends, and how diverse African American voices debated the meaning of a tumultuous period of the nation’s history.