United Gold Coast Convention

The United Gold Coast Convention was a political party whose aim was to bring about Ghanaian independence from British rule after the Second World War.

Native African merchants were, in the 1940s, ready to finance the organization of a political movement to assure their commercial interests. The party was founded by J. B. Danquah on 4 August 1947 as a combination of chiefs, academics and lawyers.

On 10 December 1947, Kwame Nkrumah returned to Ghana accepting Danquah's invitation to become party General Secretary. Big Six member Ebenezer Ako-Adjei recommended inviting Nkrumah, whom he had met at Lincoln University. Nkrumah was offered a salary of £250, Paa Grant paid the boat fare from Liverpool to Ghana. Danquah and Nkrumah disagreed over the direction of the independence movement and parted ways after two years. Nkrumah went on to form the Convention People's Party and later became the first president of independent Ghana.

The UGCC disbanded after performing poorly in the 1951 elections.

Famous quotes containing the words united, gold, coast and/or convention:

    Prior to the meeting, there was a prayer. In general, in the United States there was always praying.
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)

    John Brown of Ossawattamie
    Who died to set Abstraction free
    Stole Washington’s gold-handled sword
    Less for the gold than for the Lord....
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Forced from home, and all its pleasures,
    Afric’s coast I left forlorn;
    To increase a stranger’s treasures,
    O’er the raging billows borne.
    Men from England bought and sold me,
    Paid my price in paltry gold;
    But, though theirs they have enroll’d me,
    Minds are never to be sold.
    William Cowper (1731–1800)

    By convention there is color, by convention sweetness, by
    convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space.
    Democritus (c. 460–400 B.C.)