Ghana Becomes a Republic

Date: July 1, 1960 • Location: Moscow, Russia

Ghana became a republic, with Kwame Nkrumah as its first president.

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 the United Kingdom. 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 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.