Kwame Nkrumah was known for his boyish smile. The second he shined his glistening teeth, hearts would melt. I mean just look at this smile:
Nkrumah has gone by many names and titles over his life. Francis was his English name. Osagyefo was an Akan title meaning redeemer. He meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. His most prominent role was President.
On March 6, 1957, he declared Ghana officially independent from Britain. In his Independence Day speech, Nkrumah set an agenda for his new nation. He said triumphantly,
“We are going to demonstrate to the world, to the other nations, that we are prepared to lay our foundation, our own African personality.”
We’ll learn more about Nkrumah’s own personality below!
Welcome to the second episode of the History & Culture Series where we discuss how history is or can be depicted in the cultural industry like film, media, and books.
If you missed the first episode, you can check it out here:
I imagine quite a few of you have either heard of the Netflix hit series The Crown or seen the trailer. The show, which documents the rise and reign of Queen Elizabeth II and her family, featured a young Nkrumah.
In Episode 8 of Season 2 of The Crown, a crisis emerges over the political leanings of Kwame Nkrumah. In 1961, the ideological battle between communism and capitalism, east and west, Soviet and American (British by extension) raged on as the Cold War spread into parts of newly independent African nations.
The episode shows a young Queen Elizabeth taking advice from the American socialite turned First Lady, Jackie Kennedy. Setting up a fictional dynamic duo, the Queen is convinced all it will take is a little charm and a little dance to win back what the British believed to be an increasingly communist-leaning Nkrumah. The stakes were high for the British Empire and the expanding British Commonwealth. As the first independent Sub-Saharan African nation and the beacon of Pan-Africanism, Ghana held substantial sway over the rest of the continent.
Let’s take a look at a real photo of Kwame Nkrumah and Queen Elizabeth dancing together in Accra in November 1961.
Now let’s look at how The Crown depicted this moment:
The dance might have been symbolic, but it wasn’t necessarily consequential. The Queen didn’t have as much of an influence long term as this scene depicts. What’s understated in this episode is how cunning and smart Kwame Nkrumah was. He graduated from the finest schools in the Gold Coast (Ghana’s name under British rule) before heading to the United States to study at Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania. He was well-read, well-traveled, and well-prepared to take on this role as President of an independent Ghana.
Nkrumah had a clear smile, but a very enigmatic personality. He was a big proponent and co-founder of the non-aligned movement which encouraged a growing number of states to remain neutral in the Cold War.
Yet, Nkrumah also knew how to play both sides to get the funding and resources he needed to develop his country and the whole of Africa. His mysterious personality and non-commital attitude often frustrated both camps. No one knew the game he was playing and I think Nkrumah liked it that way. He mastered the game of international politics and created his own.
Unlike the show suggests, Queen Elizabeth’s visit held little sway over Nkrumah himself. Just as Nkrumah co-founded the nonaligned movement, he also laid the intellectual foundation for African socialism before and after Queen Elizabeth’s visit. Nkrumah was determined to create a new nation free from British influence.
But what if there was a show that didn’t focus on a monarch, but a matriarch? The mysteriousness of Nkrumah was equally Kwame’s as it was Fathia’s.
As much as people love the grumpy Grinch storyline for Prince Philip the reality is that he joined Queen Elizabeth and danced with Fathia Nkrumah, the First Lady of Ghana. If you scroll back up to the photo from that night, you can see Prince Philip and Fathia dancing right next to Kwame Nkrumah and Queen Elizabeth. If you scroll back up even further you can see Fathia Nkrumah sitting beside her husband Kwame.
So who was Fathia Nkrumah and why is she often left out of narratives concerning Kwame Nkrumah and independent Ghana?
A few months after Ghana gained independence in 1957, Kwame Nkrumah shocked Ghana and the world when he married the 26-year-old Egyptian university student in a surprise wedding. Before the announcement, rumors had been circulating that the new President was planning to marry a British woman. Other rumors speculated that he didn’t want to marry a local woman because he didn’t want to deal with the potential stress of the woman’s family.
Western powers also started to get enthralled by these rumors and had speculations of their own. In fact, the CIA opened up a whole file on Nkrumah’s marriage. The US State Department, The British Colonial Office, and the Commonwealth Relations Office all became preoccupied with the inner workings of Nkrumah’s love life.
Was the marriage legitimate? strategic? Did he love her? Why marry an Egyptian woman and not a local woman? The questions were endless and Kwame Nkrumah was not one to give a straightforward answer to anyone.
Fathia Helena Rizk was born into a Coptic family and grew up in Cairo. She was studying Arabic at a University in Cairo when she met Kwame Nkrumah’s friend who was also studying in Cairo. After hearing about the dashing Kwame Nkrumah she agreed to meet him and shortly thereafter they married in a state wedding in 1957. Leaving her family, studies, and entire life behind in Egypt, she assumed the role of first lady. Kwame and Fathia had 3 children, all of whom were very young when she had to flee the country after Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a 1966 military coup.
In all things, she seemed quiet yet full of life. She was just as fashionable as Jackie Kennedy and as proper as Queen Elizabeth. Yet, she can’t be reduced to just any ordinary housewife or first lady. She witnessed some of the most pivotal events in both African and World History. She weathered the storms of life in the shadows and I think it’s time to bring her story to the light.
What must it have been like to be the first non-black first lady of a majority-black nation? This week it seemed like the media was hyper-focused on the whereabouts of Kate Middleton, but where was Fathia Nkrumah? There’s so much more to uncover.
In the meantime, what would you title Fathia’s biopic 👀?
P.s. If anyone knows the team that wrote and produced the film A United Kingdom (2016), respond to this email 😁
Until next time,
Hi, I’m Shae and I am a doctoral candidate in History at Harvard University. I discovered my passion for education while teaching at the college and ever since then, I’ve been on a mission to bring the classroom learning experience to all of you. Everyone deserves a world-class education and I’m so glad you’re here 🤓.
📚Further Reading
Marika Sherwood, Kwame Nkrumah and the Dawn of the Cold War: The West African National Secretariat, 1945-48
Basil Davidson, Black Star: A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah
Carina Ray, “The Marriage That Sent the West into a Panic.” New African 448 (February 2006): 26–27.
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