“The photographs of Femi Bankole Osunla has introduced countless people to the beauty of Afro Beat as an art. His ability to capture performances and intimate moments of the maverick Fela Anikulapo Kuti during the golden age of Afro Beat, earned him the nick name “Femi Foto,” as well as leading to his art now being associated with the genre. “Fela’s afro beat,” declares Osunla, “is now at the centre piece of our history that grows in eminence in each passing day.”..The 49-year old is now reaping the benefits of what is justly his. From 1975 to 1997, Osunla lived and breathed the art form with Fela having arrived Lagos from his home town of Arigidi, a sleepy town in Ondo State to learn photography. “I was learning photography when I met Isaac Olaleye who was then playing the maracass for Fela’s then Africa 70 Band.” Olaleye invited Osunla to the Shrine to take photographs of him (Olaleye) performing on stage with Fela. “I had just begun taking some shots when somebody tapped me from behind and said “young photographer could you please take some action photos for me ?”..READ MORE

Global Africa has so much legacy that we forget to honor on a global level. At the root of black history is Africa, so we must not forget to include & honor the greatness of Africa whenever & wherever we celebrate Black History. As revolutions erupt around the world, fighting for freedom, jobs, education, end to tyranny, end to corruption, a wind of change & civil rights- during the month America honors Black History; we learn more about Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & the inside man that created the photographic legacy of one of the greatest movements of the people. Ernest Withers was that photographer who captured that movement, unfortunately he ended up being an FBI informant documenting the movement for sale. Even if many end up remembering his name only attached to his informant status, his photographic legacy has & will forever stand alone as its own legacy on a historic movement & moment in time that is recognized globally.

Fela Kuti’s legacy is the global soup du jour of the moment, remembering & reviving a local & global M.O.P for freedom, jobs, education, end to tyranny, end to corruption, a wind of change & civil rights. Femi Osunla is the photographer that was the inside man capturing the images of  the movement from Nigeria to Ghana & around the world with Fela -hopefully without the status of government informant to add to his legacy – maybe without scandal the world can never tell our stories.

How many publications,parties & media outlets celebrating Fela, acknowledge the importance of the purveyors & originators of the images of the culture & legacy that provide the visuals, reference point & root? Better yet, why are global Africans not acknowledging the importance of our history with countless exhibits & outlets for the living orginators to showcase their work & our history, which should forever stand alone as its own legacy attached to a historic movement & moment in time that is recognized globally? What if Femi Osunla shot Beyonce for the March 2011: L’Officiel Paris -or better yet for FAB Magazine or Ebony?

The article by Nigerian-American journalist Lola Ogunnaike about the exhibit on one of Nigeria’s greatest treasures, Fela Kuti showcasing the work of Femi Osunla, who had an insider’s view of Fela along with other contributors, could not get the international recognition of galleries to showcase their work nor did Nigeria step up to the plate to preserve & showcase these treasures of art & culture for the next generation, but when a non-African sees the lucrative potential & quits his job to chase the road to the dream..we get upset because we didn’t put in the work to do it! Global Africans have so much treasure through out the world, but we have to see our own worth then work to Protect The Culture!

“Femi Osunla stood quietly before a wall of snapshots at the New Museum in SoHo one evening last week, seemingly unaware of the blaring music and swelling crowd that had gathered around him. Lost in his remembrances, he was staring at pictures of the Nigerian singer and political activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who died in 1997. Some were candid; others were posed. All were taken by Mr. Osunla, a member of Fela’s retinue for nearly two decades.
”I have over 15,000 photos of Fela in my archives,” said Mr. Osunla, whose dedication to documenting Fela’s every move earned him the nickname Femi Foto. He then pointed to his missing bottom teeth, the small bump on his forehead, the thin scars that mar his face. Standing on the front lines with Fela in a lifelong battle with oppressive Nigerian regimes was ”not an easy task,” Mr. Osunla said, ”but I believed in what he was doing.”
”I took the pain, the police brutality, the soldier brutality, because I wanted the future generation to see that Fela was a great man,” he said.
Mr. Osunla and hundreds of others were on hand at the New Museum for the opening of ”Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.” The crowd (1,500, by the museum’s count) was a mix of intellectuals and models, downtown hipsters and uptown tastemakers. Throughout the evening a D.J. spun Fela’s sinuous, horn-driven grooves.
The draw was a multimedia group exhibition exploring the cultural impact of this musician, a legend in West Africa.
Finding a home for the exhibition proved to be difficult. Mr. Schoonmaker courted museums around the United States and London only to be ‘’shot down by virtually all of them,” he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. But for the New Museum’s director, Ms. Phillips, a show about Fela was an easy call. ”You have to take risks to be innovative,” Ms. Phillips said.
And yet, some in the Nigerian community have questioned whether Mr. Schoonmaker, who is white, is the appropriate person to introduce Fela to Americans. ”A subject like Fela is very personal to Africans,” said the Nigerian music producer Ogugua Iwelu, who worked with Fela. He argued that the show would have benefited from the insights of someone more familiar with Nigerian culture.
”If Spike Lee were to have done ‘Schindler’s List,’ he might not have gotten the same cooperation as Steven Spielberg, because that story is personal to the Jewish community,” Mr. Iwelu said.
Still, Mr. Iwelu was not entirely dismissive of Mr. Schoonmaker’s efforts. ”I respect his resilience,” Mr. Iwelu said. ”He has definitely helped us open a door, and for that we are grateful.”…READ MORE

Fela’s Women By Femi Osunla

Fela’s Women New Era :Photo by Chad Baktar For New York Times

THE MOP LEGACY IN PICTURES : Femi Osunla

Now Fela the musical is coming to Lagos because Femi insisted !

I was web surfing the other day & came across a full online version of a special issue of Ebony Magazine from 1973. What a beautiful throwback that is very relevant to  life today as Americans & in particularly as Black Americans. I am so glad I found it right at the beginning of Black history month to reflect on how far we have come as Black Americans since my birth year of 1973. As a great man, orator, griot, “Go Tell It on a Mountain” & “Notes of a Native Son” author, civil rights activist, gay rights advocate before it became cool fodder for entertainment & our global lexicon & literary legend of Black History, James Bladwin once said “Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.”

I looked over this special issue to see from whence we came & realized that there are things that have improved, things that have gotten worse & things that have remained the same. In this special issue dedicated to looking at the Black Middle Class, where the people of Harlem’s famous Striver’s Row was featured as the then gentrification from White to Black instead of today’s reversal gentrification,it also discusses the Black middle class & elite flight to the suburbs, while spotlighting a famous Chicago dentist by the name of Dr. Charles H. Sweet who chose to stay in his hood to make sure  many more native sons could get a hand up. This special issue discusses the divide between Black bourgeois, middle class & poor & how all those classes are defined & effect our forward & backward movements spiritually, politically & economically as Black America back in 1973, which remains a great topic of discussion in modern day Black America. It showcases men like Black panther  & community activists Bobby Seal who had to change with the times & move to the middle to achieve certain goals in the construct of the majority much like our Black President is faced with today.

This special issue covers the dumbfoundedness of Black people in a football player like George Seals leaving the wealth & glamourous life of an athlete to follow his dream of becoming a commodities broker because he saw the long term wealth he could bring to himself & his people that may never come in a short lived football career, much like ex football player & Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle.  This issue covered our complicated exploration of black beauty with vaseline still being our ancient Black secret along with never ending & still relevant Ads. juxtaposing the battle in dichotomy of bleaching creams along side Ads. for how to maintain our natural hair in that “Good Hair” fashion,while fighting for freedom within the context of our Pan-African liberation. Sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier’s theory  from “Black Bourgeoisie” which said, “the most recent accessions to the Negroe middle class who are prominent in the sit-ins & other protest movements could not be omitted from a more detailed study of the Black bourgeoisie“ was revisited by  Ebony in 1973, while also looking at how Black America had not come to terms with the stresses of the 1960’s never ending struggle for freedom & acceptance  without a moment to “feel no pain“,  causing generations not to deal with the issue of mental illness in the Black community.

I was marveled by much of the advertising in this special issue that very much mimicked the advertising culture of today’s Black America where the beautiful feeling of fur was the staple of the woman who had arrived & where Louis Armstrong’s incomparable jazz stylings was compared to Dewar’s White label as a scotch that never varied much like its then spokesman’s style, along with the hot new pocket size kodak camera of the time that could fit into the pocket of the model’s cotton candy colored skinny jeans/mini, the call for our young men to join the army to serve their country in the same way our president urged in his state of the union speech for our schools & universities to open up their doors for recruitment, while a single Black mother  by the name of Kelly Williams Bolar was hauled off to jail for wanting an alternative to getting the best education possible for her children. American Airlines at the time was inviting the world to discover the good life by discovering exotic lands & ancient cultures like St. Thomas, St. Croix, Haiti, Curacao & San Juan, while Black America was still drinking our most favored Kool-Aid & getting down with something good & still lovin’ it -(McDonalds)…LOL-SMH. Prudential told Black America that getting a piece of the rock “meant more than investments in..it meant investments in people“, which makes we wonder just how many in Black America use their piece of the rock to invest in their own people? As the father of hip-hop, Kool Herc continues to suffer health wise solely because of lack of finances, will someone like Jay Z use his peice of the Roc to invest in the patriarch of his own nation?

In 1973, we were still discussing Black love within the context of the sex life of the Black middle class along with the never ending debate on why educated Black women of the time like Dr. Maya Angelou could not find themselves a mate even though she was amongst the 100 most influential Black people of the time, while still wondering how the Black middle class was going  broke by living beyond their means & soldifying the fact that barbecue was favored by Blacks of all classes. 1973 -Wow -What a year!

As I reflect on the limitless information in this issue of Ebony, I look around today & wonder where have our modern day hip-hop griots like KRS1 gone because when our schools & homes were limited in teaching us about the richness of our Black history in science & inventions, KRS1 took it upon himself to be the teacher who commanded the class in saying “You must Learn“. I wonder why much more of our artists are not reflective of the times & needs in our global Black community as we once reflected & was addressed by Nina Simone in her Protest Anthology . Our rich history in science & invention must continue to be taught & passed down from our griots as we have always done from Africa to her Diaspora instead of being replaced by the lexicon of today that says Black children are falling behind in science & math because they have no role models, without anyone looking into the great advancement & works in science, invention & mathematics by young Africans of today & throughout the African Diaspora outside of the USA.

Ebony’s 1973 special issue is indeed special to me, not only in the fact that it was my birth year but also in its chock full of history that is very much relevant to today’s times & Black experience. I am delighted that Ebony has always been there for me as “Keepers of our Black history” & I hope as we reflect on Black history month & the future of Ebony that we turn to a direction that focuses on our Global Black History that includes Africa & her full diaspora. At the time when the now defunct & silenced battle over Essence hiring a White fashion director came along, there was the battle over Vogue saying no to an African Edition even though it had spread the Vogue love all over Europe  & Asia, while giving our global Blackness only a few special covers & one printed issue. I applaud Amy DuBois Barnett, who I was hoping that Ebony would consider in their restructuring toward the future, for the work she has done so far & for the work I hope she will do in showcasing Ebony’s global vision & appeal in defining our global blackness. We can’t continue to speak about our exclusion from White mainstream while continuously begging for opportunity when we have always created & had our own opportunities & legacies to draw from  & expand on. Before Oprah Winfrey became a globally known media powerhouse there were Black individuals & families like John H. Johnson & his wife Eunice Johnson of Johnson Publishing building lasting legacies for the future of Black America to build from & on, but many of us have somehow forgotten to pass down the legacies of our collective dreams.

I say now like I said back then during Black America’s battle over Essence & Vogue that we were overlooking our black diamond in the rough that was about to undergo its new shine at the same time that there is a new scramble for Africa with all eyes of the world on Africa as the game changer for global economic growth. Ebony is who we should be looking to for an African edition not Vogue because our history is very much intertwined  & it is about time that we recognize that Black history started in Africa & expanded throughout the diaspora beyond America, so why not Ebony Africa, Ebony Europe, Ebony Latin America, Ebony Caribbean & even Ebony Asia since Ebony culture is so very rich & global in its diversity. As Morgan Heritage says “A nation without any history is like a tree without roots & that kind of tree can never bare no fruit“. The place is now, the time is here for Africa’s Diaspora starting with Black America to recognize what the United Nations has already declared -2011: International Year of African Descendants! Let’s Build & Go Back to claim what is rightfully ours in the full scope of our history, in the spirit of Sankofa!

In all of our Joy & Pain…Black Still Remains Beautiful! Explore the Ebony/Jet Classic Vault!

Today is a glorious day of remembrance in Global Black History, celebrating the lives of those who showed us how to live with our heads high as kings & queens. Today we celebrate drum majors that changed the world perspective of the greatness of our Global Blackness. Today we celeberate the birth of Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942) & First Lady of the United States of America Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964). Today we celebrate the life, lessons, martyrdom, death, greatness & honor of two of the greatest Global Pan-African leaders of all time: Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Many may have heard of the infamous “Rumble in the Jungle” between Muhammad Ali & George Foreman which culminated into showing global Africans about a time “When We Were Kings“, one of the first filmed pilgrimages in the spirit of Sankofa to reunite the ancestors of enslaved Africans back to the homeland & continent that they were taken from, hosted by a nation then called Zaire AKA Congo which had one of the most prolific, intelligent, visionary freedom fighters of  global Africans, a man we call Patrice Lumumba.  Global Africans should mark this day 2011 on their calender & remember that all who we celebrate today were about service, upliftment, freedom, equality & showcasing a type of class & pride in global Black power that is unbossed & unbought!

“Between 1961 and 1973, six African independence leaders were assassinated by their ex-colonial rulers, including Patrice Lumumba of Congo, who was killed 50 years ago today“….READ MORE

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

“And in my own life, in my own small way, I’ve tried to give back to this country that has given me so much. That’s why I left a job at a law firm for a career in public service, working to empower young people to volunteer in their communities. Because I believe that each of us – no matter what our age or background or walk of life – each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation..One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am. .”-Michelle Obama

“Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation and this means we must develop a world perspective…We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools” Martin Luther King Jr.

“…Our wounds are too fresh and too painful still for us to drive them from our memory. We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, or to clothe ourselves, or to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as creatures dear to us…Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage where we are regarded from the outside… History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets… a history of glory and dignity.” Patrice Émery Lumumba

“Brussels, Belgium – Hundreds of nationals from DR Congo on Sunday attended a march in Brussels to demand the trial of the murderers of the country’s prime minister Patrice Lumumba, who was killed on 17 January 1961. The march was held on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Lumumba, who was Prime Minister of the first government following the country’s independence on 30 June 1960…”READ MORE

Being a Ghanaian, you are raised from birth to honor your elders & to seek their wisdom. Somewhere  down the line of generations & forced & desired travels many of us have lost our way in seeking the wisdom of our elders & in honoring the fact that in order for us to know where we are going we have to know where we came from. Our elders hold that history & knowledge that we need to understand where we are , how we got here &  where we are going.

There has been so much talk and new reenactments of the historical March on Washington, but I learned more by listening to the words of the elders who were there in the flesh in speaking on what that moment was like & how far we  have come as a people from that moment by being able to step away from the new era fear mongering  & new voices saying they know best on how to move us forward as a people & as a nation when the answers in the mistakes made & how to proceed forward rests right with those who started the revolution, those whose opinions & wisdom we have somehow forgotten to seek in our brand newness of thinking that we are living in a time & space that has never been replicated before, as we try to replicate  moments in time like the March on Washington, life, human existence, hip-hop & other genres of music. Our human history is globally fused & intertwined from East to West, North to South. Honoring the teachings of our elders, holding our elders accountable to that history & telling our own stories by keeping this history alive to formulate the future is up to us as individuals & concerned global citizens, not solely for us to leave to the discretions & digressions of institutionalized education systems because there can never be enough textbooks to tell the behind the story stories that our elders are available to pass down & share with us for free, while they are still alive. These are the stories that must be told in order to represent as much of the totality of our global history as possible without too many breaks & lost generations in between.

As Bob Marley says “Every man thinks that his burden is the heaviest.. who feels it knows it  not..but you can’t run away from yourself” . Our elders are part of ourselves that we can never run away from because they hold the history to our future! Honor , Respect & Seek the Wisdom of Your Elders!

“The masses had lost faith in civilian democratic government.. the masses had lost faith in the military Government generals..they were also becoming as corrupt as whatever it is ..& now the situation was ready for the possibility of an explosion..it is not the medium of education, the medium of respect, of merit that is used to govern people, but they use the medium of fear to terrorize the people into a state of subjugation.. when you use fear it degenerates into hatred & HATRED CAN BLOW UP!“…HMMMMMM- is he saying that Ghanaians didn’t have the power & capacity  to be strong enough, to be defiant enough to be able to protect freedom & justice? Hindsight is 20/20 when will we ever learn that all around the world -same song!

Billions have been raised so far in charitable donations for Haiti, but more & more Haitians are dying every day after surviving being buried alive in years of poverty & the rubble of the earthquake, having only their sheer will to live to hold onto. International bureaucracy & power struggles of people with invested interest more in economy than humanity is becoming the continued cause of many Haitians being handed their final death certificates.

We need to be diligent & aware about keeping up with who is controlling the purse strings of all the humanitarian aid & the future sovereignty of Haiti. We can raise all the money we want to help Haiti, but Haiti will still be in the same condition & possibly worse, with an achieved loss of sovereignty if Haitians & Pan-Africanists at large do not come to the aid of their brothers & sisters in attaining & retaining economic empowerment & sovereignty. We have seen throughout the history of the world that a nation’s power & health rests upon its economic power & health; however for many African nations & Diasporans, genuinely fighting to attain this reality has been less & less of a priority because it has been easier & less work to collect foreign aid in return for resources, to leave the health & upliftment from poverty of their citizens to NGO’s & to just silently exist without much fight nor change within broken systems of governance, as long as the few in power continue to hold their titles as beneficiaries.

“Something in the nature of an economic revolution is required. Our development has been held back for too long by the colonial-type economy. We need to reorganize entirely, so that each country can specialize in producing the goods and crops for which it is best suited…..We have the blessing of the wealth of our vast resources, the power of our talents and the potentialities of our people. Let us grasp now the opportunities before us and meet the challenge to our survival. ” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s First President

We need to be diligent about not turning a blind eye to where all the Haitian relief funds are going when there are so many still begging & waiting for relief. Where is all that money being allocated to? Who is watching over the money & making the decisions on how it is spent? These are the questions we should never stop asking as we give of ourselves in charity because what is the point of charity when the situation of the people is never helped, but rather seems to get worse than better? This is the question we should be asking the Red Cross & the 10,000 + NGO/charities that were in Haiti prior to the quake & the numerous more that are in Haiti now.

“We shall measure our progress by the improvement in the health of our people; by the number of children in school, and by the quality of their education; by the availability of water and electricity in our towns and villages, and by the happiness which our people take in being able to manage their own affairs. The welfare of our people is our chief pride, and it is by this that my Government will ask to be judged.” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

February honors Black History month in America- we should not & can not allow the history of Black people throughout Africa & her Diaspora to be written in the same way in the next decade as it has been written in the past because that only will show the lack of forward movement & the acceptance of stagnation amongst Black people globally. If this decade is going to be diffrent than the last decade for Haiti & Black people globally, then we must recognize our common struggle, the same struggle that became the catalyst for the movement of Pan-Africanism.

We need this new decade to be a revival of Pan-Africanism with new, young, intelligent, concerned, enlightened, awake, aware, unabashed,unbought, unbossed, pride filled Black people in the likeness of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, W.E.B Dubois, Jomo Kenyatta, Marcus Garvey,Patrice Lumumba, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Ahmed Sékou Touré ,Gamal Abd El Nasser,Haile Selassie,Bob Marley, Fela Anikulapo Kuti etc. -everyday people turned leaders who knew,understood & accepted that although they have been spread all over the world, their legacy empowerment & economic freedom is intertwined in the legacy, empowerment & economic freedom of Africa-the spiritual birthplace of home. The type of feeling of home where one always comes back to pay homage while seeking the guidance & comfort of mama Africa’s bosom -the only true mother of our blood & roots regardless of our adopted mother nations.

There are the Kimmie Weeks of Africa & the Wyclef Jean’s of the Diaspora, who need to join forces with the likes of people like Samia Yaba Christina Nkrumah, daughter of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who has decided to take on the mantle of her father by starting a new intelligent revolution toward real resolution. There needs to be a new era/new decade of Pan-Africanism with a Pan-African summit based on the original teachings & goals of empowerment & health through our collective economic freedom at the forefront.

“She is emerging as the new face of the current crop of selfless continental African leaders who think more about the development and prosperity of sub-Saharan Africa, first and foremost than looting from the continent.” Ghanaweb.com.

Sami Nkrumah & the growing crop of new thinkers & leaders are the only way to make this new decade, a decade where Africa & the Diaspora truly gets our house in order in efforts to write our own history in the manner that we would like to be recognized & heralded. We can’t rest on touting the legacy & greatness of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah or Toussaint L’Ouverture when there has been little to no forward movement created by the generations after them, in terms of the level of global respect & conditions of Africans & her Diasporans.

“Achieving political and economic liberation, social justice and national and continental unity including the African Diaspora are yet to be realized.” Samia Nkrumah

Pan-African movement
“Movement dedicated to establishing independence for African nations and cultivating unity among black people throughout the world. It originated in conferences held in London (1900, 1919, 1921, 1923) and other cities. W.E.B. Du Bois was a principal early leader. The important sixth Pan-African conference (Manchester, 1945) included Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah. The first truly intergovernmental conference was held in Accra, Ghana, in 1958, where Patrice Lumumba was a key speaker. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) was founded by Robert M. Sobukwe and others in South Africa in 1959 as a political alternative to the African National Congress, which was seen as contaminated by non-African influences. The founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU; now the African Union) by Julius Nyerere and others in 1963 was a milestone, and the OAU soon became the most important Pan-Africanist organization.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60U0IV20100131

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1455459.html

http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/haiti-red-cross-donations/

http://open.salon.com/blog/ezili_danto/2009/10/13/oil_in_haiti_-_economic_reasons_for_the_unus_occupation

“When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.” — Jomo Kenyatta, Pan-Africanist & first president of Kenya

“It is said, of course that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications, no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilize our resources for our own social needs…Yet all the stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with Africa’s gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores. Our CAPITAL flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to have originated from OUR shores. Africa provides more than 60 per cent of the world’s gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries – the basic economic might of the foreign Powers – comes from OUR continent.” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

http://ghanaianoracle.wordpress.com/the-history-of-ghana/

The Achievements and Failures of President Kwame Nkrumah
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/history/cia_nkrumah.php

Richard Helms (CIA) file on Nkrumah
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/history/cia_nkrumah.php

“Countrymen, the task ahead is great indeed, and heavy is the responsibility; and yet it is a noble and glorious challenge – a challenge which calls for the courage to dream, the courage to believe, the courage to dare, the courage to do, the courage to envision, the courage to fight, the courage to work, the courage to achieve – to achieve the highest excellencies and the fullest greatness of man. Dare we ask for more in life? ”
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah -Address to the National Assembly. 12 June 1965