Ghana’s imminent independence from British colonialism in 1957 was not only watched closely by other colonized Africans, but by the leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States.The campaign for equal rights for black people in the US was at its height and its leaders at the time felt a connection to this soon-to-be free black African country.

Kwame Nkrumah, then prime minister of the Gold Coast (as the colony was known), was intent on making a political point along with the pomp and circumstance of new statehood.While the US government was invited (represented by vice president Richard Nixon), so were leaders of the civil rights movement including Martin Luther King. In his letter inviting King to Accra, Nkrumah wrote: “It would give me great personal pleasure if you should be able to attend.”It was important for Nkrumah to have a figure like King attend the independence celebrations because his vision of pan-Africanism extended beyond continental Africa.

“Before I knew it, I started weeping. I was crying for joy,” said Martin Luther King jr of being at Ghana’s independence.

As a student in 1930s and 1940s United States, Nkrumah saw at first hand the racism black people endured and it radicalized his consciousness about Africanness and blackness. In some ways, it was a contributing force for him to return home in 1947 and eventually become the lead architect of Ghana’s independence ten years later. King travelled to Accra, Ghana along with his wife Coretta Scott on a trip sponsored by the Montgomery Improvement Association and King’s congregation the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Prominent black leaders including Ralph Bunche (the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950) and Mordecai Johnson (the first African American president of Howard University) were also in town.