Independence – 6 March 1957

Shortly after midnight on 6 March 1957, at the Old Polo Grounds in Accra, Kwame Nkrumah stepped to the podium as fireworks split the sky. “At long last, the battle has ended,” he told the roaring crowd. “Ghana, your beloved country is free forever.” The Union Jack came down; a new flag — red, gold and green with a lone black star, designed by Theodosia Okoh — rose in its place.

The symbolism was deliberate and continental. The new nation rejected “Gold Coast” for “Ghana”, invoking the ancient empire. The Black Star recalled Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line and became the emblem of African freedom — later echoed in the flags of Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and others. Ghana’s independence proved self-rule was possible, and liberation movements from Nairobi to Lusaka took heart.

Dignitaries from across the world attended, including the Duchess of Kent, Martin Luther King Jr. — who wept, he said, at seeing Black people govern themselves — and delegations from every corner of the independence movement. Ghana became a republic on 1 July 1960 with Nkrumah as its first president, and Accra became the capital of Pan-Africanism.