A Leg Up

By Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Kwame vibrated with rage, panic, hubris, and focus as he strode through the halls. He cast a sideways glance at his companion. “Call me Jack,” he’d said, the abundance of teeth in his grin a reminder of the largesse that backed him. Three years ago, this troop through the heart of American power had been a thrill, an affirmation of his hard fought achievement, and a promise that history’s repetition cycle was closer than Jack and co. might think.  The light would dawn on “the dark” once again. But it was 1961, a March lion of a rainstorm raging outside, and Kwame was there with cupped palms.

Jack’s predecessor had all but signed the paperwork before his term had ended. But American democracy had forced Kwame back to the well, back to his knees, a new man to entreat for what had already been begged for: the funds necessary to close the Volta River Dam deal. Kwame’s detractors denounced him as a dictator, but no negotiation with Ghana would suffer the capriciousness of democracy while he was alive. His eventual successor—because of course there would be one, he would not live forever—would have a firm foundation to build on. Foundations, and legacies, weren’t built in four-year terms as America and the colonial powers well knew, their republics and monarchies predicated on centuries of forced labor and feudalism.  

For all its heavy-footed power, Jack’s stride was leisurely. Taking his time, Kwame thought, because he could. One and a half months into the job, Jack was the latest “Leader of the Free World,” feeling his way around the title, testing the legs of his power. Kwame matched two steps for the taller man’s one, as Jack turned to him. “You know the East Room,” he said.

“I do.” Kwame nodded at the ballroom where Jack’s forerunner had hosted him and his delegation. Ike had foisted his Communism-paranoid Vice on him at the festivities, as he had done in ‘57, sending Dick Nixon in his stead to Independence Square. 

“I promised Jackie I wouldn’t let you leave without her meeting you.” Jack reiterated the reason they weren’t getting straight to the business of Kwame’s trip as they continued ambling through the endless hallway, searching the storied house for his wife.   

“Of course,” Kwame said gamely, adding the expected, “I’ve wanted to meet her as well.” 

He understood he was something to be seen, paraded—a Black man who had achieved the same coup as the founding father enshrined in the cracked oil painting that dominated the East Room. As Washington had done almost 200 years before Jack’s arrival in the White House, Kwame had thrown off the yoke of the British.  

Kennedy was something to be seen, too—and Kwame knew he wanted to be acknowledged for pulling off his own coup: a stunning upset, disappointing Dick Nixon’s expected succession. America’s youngest elected president. A Pulitzer Prizewinner. The first Catholic to inhabit the Oval Office. But this was an unnecessary and petty display of power, Kwame felt. After all, he had come to ask the man to sign a check. 

Jack turned into an open doorway, preceding himself with the Boston boom of his voice. 

“There she is.” He ushered Kwame into yet another parlor, more of Jack’s framed antecedents staring them down from the walls. “Jackie, look who I’ve got here.”

Kwame stepped back and straightened, assuming the familiar posture of one being presented even as he took in the American First Lady. Hunched over a box of books, the tendons flexing in her slender arms as she lifted a tome to the assistant her two-year-old daughter was running circles around, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy exuded a gravitas absent from the helmet-haired, ball gown-swathed avatar in the inauguration photos that had been wired to every newspaper around the world.

Her wide doe eyes leapt from the sloping curves of her full face, skipping from her husband to the undone state of the room before settling on Nkrumah again. Her irritation at being interrupted joined the pleasure of surprise, flushing her cheeks. 

“President Nkrumah!” She enunciated every syllable of Kwame’s surname, pronouncing it “Nuh-krumah” instead of the correct “In-krumah,” her tone somehow both breathy and steely.

“I wasn’t sure I’d get to meet you,” she said. She straightened and extended her hand, closing the distance between them to touch his cheeks with hers in a French greeting. Kiss. Kiss. Her skin was pampered, perfumed, sticky, and warm against his. “I was preparing to ambush you in Jack’s office when these boxes arrived.”

“Didn’t I tell you she’d have my hide if I didn’t bring you over?” 

Kwame smiled dutifully. If there was one thing growing up under colonial rule had taught him, it was how to smile for a white man: Lips parted wide enough to show as many teeth as possible, jaw clamped to assure he wouldn’t bite.

“It’s true, President Nkrumah. I had Caroline all dressed up to meet you when they called about these books for the library.”

“With Jackie redecorating,” Jack said, “every other day there’s a new box or crate coming through the halls.”

“Well, your touch is already felt, Mrs. Kennedy,” Kwame obliged, empathetic to any task of renovation, whether it be a home, a country, or a continent.

“Thank you. I certainly hope so.” Mrs. Kennedy stretched out her hand and her daughter came running to clasp it. “Caroline, come greet President Nkrumah. He’s come all the way from Ghana to meet with your father.”

Kwame bent, eye to eye with Jack and Jackie’s daughter, a swirl of emotion momentarily dizzying him. If her father reneged on the Volta agreement, it was very possible another generation in Ghana, and Africa, would remain under this little girl’s soft leather shoe. 

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Caroline,” he said. “You’ve made me miss my children.” 

Mrs. Kennedy shook her head in understanding. “You’ll have to come back for a visit with your children and your wife.”

Kwame had been studying the First Lady from the moment he walked into the parlor, trying to determine why Jack had chosen her to be his excuse for delay, but now he looked her in the eye. Now he understood. The First Lady’s invitation to his wife and kids was as loaded as the meeting he had flown to Washington to have with her husband, as heavy with meaning as the press conference that had preceded this private show. His marriage to Fathia three years ago had sent American and British leadership into conniptions about the potential ramifications of a union between East and West, North and “Sub-Saharan,” “White” and “Black Africa”.

Kwame swallowed a nervous lump now thinking about the handwringing contents of the telegrams that had flown between Washington and the British High Commission in Accra, and the latter’s decision to dismiss protocol and abstain from sending their congratulations. He had heard the quip being passed around the American Embassy that he had petitioned Nasser for “one bride, sight unseen.” And he had chuckled with a shaking head at the High Commission staffers’ willingness to believe a fetish priest had not only advised him to marry Fathia, but prophesied their firstborn would be a messiah. 

He had refused to humor the gossip, privately or publicly. Whether he had married Fathia for love or continent was his own affair. The West would have to get used to an independent African, and Africa. But he wasn’t quite free yet. He needed them. 

“I’m sure Fathia would love to visit your beautiful home.” 

Jack Kennedy placed a firm hand on Kwame’s shoulder. “Now that the invitations are in the mail, may I and the President take leave?”

Mrs. Kennedy nodded. “It was truly a pleasure to meet you, President Nkrumah. I’m so happy for you and your country.”

Now in the Oval Office, the tantrum of rain outside a poetic swirl through the windowed doors, Kwame noted the discomfort reddening his American counterpart as a Black man in servant costume materialized. Watching the butler dip to relieve his silver tray of a china tea set, carefully avoiding direct eye contact, the stakes of this meeting both pinned Kwame to the textured upholstery of the settee opposite Jack’s chair, and pierced him. 

He would never forget his days at Lincoln and at U Penn. Working off campus in the Philly shipyards, he had corrected many an earnest assumption that Africans lived in trees. He had endured his share of reliably filthy “Blacks Only” toilets. Routinely, predictably, he was called “Nigger.” 

He remembered his wonder that not even the Depression had woken poor whites to the lie of race and their racial superiority, and he mulled the providential irony of the incident that had spurred America’s interest in financing the Volta River Dam in the first place. 

If that waitress at the Howard Johnson in Dover, Delaware hadn’t refused to seat Komla and his secretary inside the restaurant—if the incident hadn’t made international headlines: ike apologizes for racist treatment—Eisenhower would not have deigned to meet with them. The American president would not have had to know or care that the men had been in Dover seeking funding for the Dam. 

The Ghanaian people were just about as independent as this American brother butler who could not even vote for the man he served, Kwame thought through a gritted smile, still at the mercy of imperial bosses. But in a generation, if the Volta River Project were financed to build the Volta Dam, Ghanaians—and all Africans, if the continent’s independent leaders would get on board—would be free in spirit and in truth. And it would encourage the Blacks in America who were agitating for their freedom too. 

“Mr. President,” Kwame began, preempting any more inane pleasantries. “I’m sure you know the potentialities of the Volta River Project are infinite and imminent. The days of oil’s obsolescence are impending. With the Volta Dam, America will be making an investment into the future of energy, and,” he paused to glance in the direction of the exiting servant, “in the progress of Civil Rights.”

Jack’s eyes blazed in their signature baggy pockets, his head resting in the “L” of his open hand, his index at his temple, his thumb under his chin. They both knew closing this deal was good optics for them both. 

Jack’s support of industrialization in Ghana—the first nation in “Black Africa” to wrest sovereignty from the British—would be a signal he was committed to honoring his campaign promise of moral leadership with respect to advancing full legal rights to Black Americans. And it would be confirmation of the promise Kwame had made in his globally broadcast speech to the people of Ghana at Independence Square: “We can prove to the world that when the African is given a chance, he can show the world that he is somebody.” 

“President Nkrumah, as I said at the press conference today, I have the same hope for Africa, and the world, that you do.” He leaned forward in his chair now. “Frankly, the only thing that gives me pause is your friendship with Nikita Khrushchev. I’m getting a lot of pressure not to ratify anything you and President Eisenhower agreed to until the American people can be sure where your loyalties lie.”

Kwame crossed his legs as he responded, the knife-sharp creases of his black trousers the only aggression he could display. 

“President Kennedy, Ghana is not, and will not be, your pawn,” he wanted to say. “The Soviet Union is a potential investor, just as you are.” But Kwame had not succeeded in mobilizing the Ghanaian people by playing the Short Game. His end goal focus had gotten him through incarceration, election as Prime Minister, and his ultimate win as President. It still guided him as he navigated the booby-trapped transition from British rule to sovereignty. 

He prefaced his next words with a nod, his lips bunched into a rueful point. “President Kennedy, my relationship with the Soviets is cordial and defensive. As a newly independent nation, we have to keep our friends and enemies close.”    

“Well, I want you to know America is your friend.” He added, “Your $150 million friend.” 

Kwame arched the corners of his mouth, stretched his lips taut over his teeth, and hid the pride he swallowed. America’s investment was no act of friendship. The deal as it existed favored the U.S. and the other foreign governments and institutions that had agreed to invest in the Dam. Ghana’s bauxite would be smelted into aluminum ingots, then taken out of the country for processing into commodities that would be sold back to Ghana and other poor nations at a markup. 

But after America, Britain, Canada, and the World Bank exacted their respective pounds of flesh through the designated “pioneer company relief period,” Ghana would see the dividends to the tune of $6 million in annual payment for the energy the Volta Dam would produce. It wasn’t nearly enough compensation, Kwame knew, but building the Dam was about more than money. 

Having a hydroelectric dam in the heart of “Black Africa” would change everything for the continent. The Volta Dam and a companion aluminum smelter in Ghana’s first planned city, Tema, would employ thousands of Ghanaians and provide opportunities for them to develop the skills necessary to transition to a fully industrialized economy. It would take Ghana out of the dark, with enough electricity to light up the whole nation, not just the expat enclaves the Brits had wired for themselves. 

A dam would enable Ghana to sell and share power with other African nations and catalyze the rest of the continent’s development. It would transform Ghana’s fishing industry, giving her the ability to annually farm close to 10,000 tons of fresh fish in the created Volta Lake. The Lake would flood the areas immediately surrounding it, generating rice-ready fields, increasing Ghana’s ability to feed herself, rather than import a majority of foodstuffs as the British had set things up.

The Volta Dam would show the world the African man was capable of managing his own affairs.

The moment the deal was closed, Kwame would begin dispatching Volta River Authority agents to the villages that would need to be moved to make way for the Dam. Almost everything was in place for construction to commence, and 80,000 villagers to be resettled. He just needed Jack to sign.

“I appreciate your friendship,” Kwame told Jack, hoping he sounded obsequious enough, hating that he had to.  

“Friendship is a choice,” Jack replied. “You can’t be friends with everybody.”

Kwame nodded understanding of the terms of the deal, rejecting them in his heart. 

Jack rose now, placing his palm on Kwame’s arm. “I’m sure all financing issues will be resolved. We’ve got to make this great project happen for our countries, and our people.” Leading Kwame out the way he had come, he continued casually, “Have you been to the Aswan Dam yet?”

Kwame met Jack’s eyes, interpreting the subtext. In reflex, he bowed his head in gratitude, a wave of relief loosening his facial muscles with genuine pleasure: mouth open, tongue exposed, top and bottom teeth in view. 

Khrushchev had agreed to fund Egypt’s Aswan Dam when America hedged, and the U.S. now regretted their lost influence. Jack had just implied they would not make the same mistake twice. 

Still smiling, Kwame told himself the influence America supposed they would get in Ghana when they invested in the Dam would be short-lived. All Ghana needed was this leg up. When they found their footing, it would be America’s Presidents flying to Accra with their hands out, moving through the halls of Flagstaff House to beg him: Osagyefo Dr. Reverend Kwame Francis Nwia-Kofi “Showboy” Nkrumah, President for Life.