B. 2. Ghana (Gold Coast) to 1957

Ghana was the first African country south of the Sahara to gain its independence from colonialism. Small steps towards African representation had begun in the 1920s, and under the post-World War II constitution African parties were allowed to contest elections. The British generally favoured cooperation with traditional chiefs and a small intellectual elite until there arose a nationalist movement drawing support from the urban population, and led by Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party he founded in 1949. Nkrumah was imprisoned after protests in 1950, won the 1951 elections from jail, and was soon after released and became the country’s prime minister in the transition period leading to independence in 1957. Nkrumah’s concept of nonviolent ‘positive action’ was one element in the political processes which led to early independence, though its significance is disputed by some historians.