II.

Early Life and Education

Kwame Nkrumah was born in the town of Nkroful in the southwestern corner of the British colony of the Gold Coast (now Ghana). Nkrumah was an excellent student in local Catholic missionary schools. While still a teenager, he became an untrained elementary school teacher in the nearby town of Half Assini. In 1926 Nkrumah entered Achimota College in Accra, the capital of the Gold Coast. After earning a teacher's certificate from there in 1930, Nkrumah taught at several Catholic elementary schools. In 1935 he sailed to the United States to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Lincoln University with B.A. degrees in economics and sociology in 1939, earned a theology degree from the Lincoln Theological Seminary in 1942, and received M.A. degrees in education and philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942 and 1943.