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AAM ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Saturday, November 14, 6:30 pm
GOODMAN COMMUNITY CENTER
149 Waubesa St. Madison
http://www.africanassociation.org
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From: Akurang-Parry, Kwabena
Shippensburg University
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Today, Ghanaians are celebrating the centenary birth of Kwame Nkrumah the
first head of state of independent Ghana. He was born in Nkroful in the
Western Province of the Gold Coast on September 21, 1909. Nkrumah was a
pan-Africanist who crusaded for decolonization. His political ideologies
and cultural canons empowered Ghanaians and molded the antiracist and
anticolonial ideas of other leaders in Africa and of course Diasporic
Africans who were fighting for their civil rights. No matter how Nkrumah
is assessed, he was a visionary whose ideas and achievements were far
ahead of his times. Indeed, Nkrumah would forever remain a great
frontispiece that unfolds that composite epic of African nationalism and
decolonization. This my celebration of Nkrumah in a praise poem
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
*Kwame Nkrumah 1909-2009: A Song of Redemptive Grace
By Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Dear Mother Africa,
Kwame Nkrumah has returned to your terrain of hope
And your children are secured in your fertile womb
With the Volta, Congo, Niger, flowing in their veins
The seer of clouds of African rebirth has returned home
And the Sahara is yielding wholesome fruits of humanity
The eternal Odum of Nkrumah shield all your children
Happily today, the Sahara has blossomed into forest
Mother, the harmattan induced by the Atlantic is over
In the dry season the Volta and Zambezi timelessly flow
And the great Gambia has overpowered the Atlantic
And the rich Kalahari has become the fountain of gold
And Nkrumah has sent Serengeti lions to the moon
And termites of Kano are molding 21st-century mounds
And birds of Madagascar are bridging your distant parts!
Mother, Nkrumah has happily announced to your siblings
That your children have returned to your glorious home
Where the cloying clay is clamoring for awakening dawn
And Nkrumah nurtures hope in the African sarcophagus
Mother, your children visit Nkrumah’s sarcophagus
To grow in his fertile soil of global African rebirth
The black light in the sarcophagus is illuminating the hope
There, Mother, the cusp of global rebirth is flowering
Mother, the echoes of Nkrumah’s rebirth fill the dawn
Your children listen to his new energetic call of hope,
They listen to his inspiring beats of rain-drops of hope
On the eaves of Nyaniba’s magnificent Nzema fortress,
Mother, his use of ancient Nzema, Zulu, Yoruba herbs,
Is healing the splurge of the decades of Atlantic decay
And Nkrumah’s Ghana is on the pathways of progress
And Mother, you are at the center of the cusp of rebirth
Mother, Nkrumah has stretched forth his zenith hand
And we see in His hands the matchless Bronze of Ile Ife
Mother, the incandescent Kente illuminates his inner soul
His back is rested on the enduring Zimbabwe fortress
Nkrumah is undyingly humanizing your nests of hope
The Sahara and the Kalahari are in full endless bloom
Mother Africa, at the dawn of the 21st century
With the second glorious advent of the Osagyefo
Your ebony children have taken the first strides
Mother, your dark, ebony children
Are bearing the cusp of global rebirth
Mother,
your
dark,
resilient
ebony
children
Are hoisting
the global
flag
It is the flag of
Nkrumah’s rebirth of hope
And Nkrumah has summoned the sun to
stand still
Your children took the first steps on the Serengeti
And your children will take the first steps on Mars
There, the cusp of rebirth belongs to Nkrumah’s Africa
*Thematic portions of this poem are abridged from Kwabena Akurang-Parry,
"The African Cusp: 21st Century" (An Epic Poem), UFAHAMU: Journal of the
African Activist Association, 29, 2-3 (2003), 209-217.
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