J. B. Danquah

Joseph Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Danquah was a lawyer, scholar and statesman, one of the Big Six of Ghana's independence struggle and the father of the political tradition that became the New Patriotic Party. He was born at Bepong in Kwahu on 18 December 1895 and died in detention on 4 February 1965.

Scholar and lawyer

He came from the Ofori Panin royal family of Akyem Abuakwa; his elder brother was Nana Sir Ofori Atta I. He worked as a clerk to a barrister and at the Supreme Court before studying at University College London, where he took a philosophy degree in 1925 and a doctorate in 1927, the first West African to earn a PhD at a British university. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1926. Back in the Gold Coast he practised law, helped found the Gold Coast Youth Conference and started The Times of West Africa, the colony's first daily newspaper.

The independence struggle

He was a founder of the United Gold Coast Convention in 1947, which invited Kwame Nkrumah to be its secretary, and after the 1948 riots was detained with Nkrumah and the rest of the Big Six. His historical research supported the name Ghana for the new country. He and Nkrumah split, and Danquah led the opposition. He ran against Nkrumah for president in 1960, was detained under the Preventive Detention Act in 1961, released in 1962, elected president of the Ghana Bar Association, and detained again in 1964. He died at Nsawam prison. His son was the actor Paul Danquah.