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.

[7] After multiple failed attempts on his life, coupled with increasingly difficult local economic conditions, Nkrumah's government became authoritarian in the 1960s, as he repressed political opposition and conducted elections that were neither free nor fair.

[13] He fostered a personality cult, forming ideological institutes and adopting the title of 'Osagyefo Dr.'[14] Nkrumah was deposed in 1966 in a coup d'état by the National Liberation Council, under whose supervision the country's economy was privatized.

[41][44][45] According to historian John Henrik Clarke in his article on Nkrumah's American sojourn, "the influence of the ten years that he spent in the United States had a lingering effect on the rest of his life.

[54] While at Penn, Nkrumah worked with the linguist William Everett Welmers, providing the spoken material that formed the basis of the first descriptive grammar of his native Fante dialect of the Akan language.

The young Carlos Cook [sic], founder of the Garvey oriented African Pioneer Movement was on the scene, also bringing a nightly message to his street followers.

[61][62] Nkrumah played a major role in the Pan-African conference held in New York in 1944, which urged the United States, at the end of the Second World War, to help ensure Africa became developed and free.

[75] They planned to pursue a new African culture without tribalism, democratic within a socialist system, synthesizing traditional aspects with modern thinking, and for this to be achieved by non-violent means if possible.

Seen as a major step towards self-government,[83] the new arrangement prompted the colony's first true political party, founded in August 1947, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC).

Local cocoa bean farmers were upset because trees exhibiting cacao swollen-shoot virus, but still capable of yielding a crop, were being destroyed by the colonial authorities.

Nkrumah and Danquah addressed a meeting of the Ex-Service men's Union in Accra on 20 February 1948, which was made in advance of a planned march to present a petition to the governor.

[104] Nkrumah's assistant, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, ran the CPP in his absence; the imprisoned leader was able to influence events through smuggled notes written on toilet paper.

[99] The governor instructed the civil service to give the fledgling government full support, and the three British members of the cabinet took care not to vote against the elected majority.

In 1952, he consulted with the visiting Colonial Secretary, Oliver Lyttelton, who indicated that Britain would look favorably on further advancement, so long as the chiefs and other stakeholders had the opportunity to express their views.

Their demands were for a federal, rather than a unitary government for an independent Gold Coast, and for an upper house of parliament where chiefs and other traditional leaders could act as a counter to the CPP majority in the assembly.

[124] They drew considerable support in the Northern Territory and among the chiefs in Ashanti, who petitioned the British queen, Elizabeth II, asking for a Royal Commission into what form of government the Gold Coast should have.

"[134] He spoke at the first session of the Ghana Parliament that Independence Day, telling his new country's citizens that "we have a duty to prove to the world that Africans can conduct their own affairs with efficiency and tolerance and through the exercise of democracy.

[143] A serious bus strike in Accra stemmed from resentments among the Ga people, who believed members of other tribes were getting preferential treatment in government promotion, and this led to riots there in August.

[138] Kofi Abrefa Busia of the United Party (Ghana) gained prominence as an opposition leader in the debate over this Act, taking a more classically liberal position and criticizing the ban on tribal politics as repressive.

We must ourselves take part in the pursuit of scientific and technological research as a means of providing the basis for our socialist society, Socialism without science is void.… We need also to reach out to the mass of the people who have not had the opportunities of formal education.

[175][171] In 1952, the Artisan Trading Scheme, arranged with the Colonial Office and UK Ministry of Labour, provided for a few experts in every field to travel to Britain for technical education.

Reflecting his African heritage, Nkrumah frequently eschewed Western fashion, donning a fugu (a Northern attire) made with Southern-produced Kente cloth, a symbol of his identity as a representative of the entire country.

[171] A campaign against nudity in the northern part of the country received special attention from Nkrumah, who reportedly deployed Propaganda Secretary Hannah Cudjoe to respond.

[199][198] Nkrumah's time in office began successfully: forestry, fishing, and cattle-breeding expanded, production of cocoa (Ghana's main export) doubled, and modest deposits of bauxite and gold were exploited more effectively.

Rather than allowing cocoa farmers to keep the windfall, Nkrumah appropriated the increased revenue via central government levies, then invested the capital into various national development projects.

[228][210]Nkrumah sought to exploit the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in order to gain maximum concessions from both sides in their geopolitical attempts to outmanoeuvre one another in West Africa and elsewhere.

[239] Ghana also gave military support to rebels fighting against Ian Smith's white-minority government in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which had unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965.

[243] In February 1966, while Nkrumah was on a state visit to North Vietnam and China, his government was overthrown in a violent coup d'état led by the national military and police forces, with backing from the civil service.

[253][failed verification] With this reversal, accentuated by the expulsion of immigrants and a new willingness to negotiate with apartheid South Africa, Ghana lost a good deal of its stature in the eyes of African nationalists.

The show's portrayal of the historical significance of the Queen's visit to Ghana and dance with Nkrumah has been described as exaggerated in one source interviewing Nat Nuno-Amarteifio, later mayor of Accra, who was a teenage student at the time.