Exhibiting the Nation

Abstract

In their quest to gain complete independence from Europe and to consolidate the new nations, nationalist leaders and adherents of the négritude movement, such as Aimé Césaire (Martiniquan poet, intellectual and politician), Léopold Sédar Senghor (the first president of Senegal), as well as Kwame Nkrumah (who advanced the ideology of the African Personality), sought to highlight the common cultural and political history of Africa.¹ The positive aspects of black history and culture were articulated through their individual writings, speeches, and political activities. Being an avid reader and the author of over 20 books, Nkrumah had a special penchant for the role of history, particularly that of Africa, in the nation-building process. He also understood that nations construct museums to preserve and display their glorious historical past, expressive culture, and traditions for the citizenry and the world to memorialize and celebrate. The best examples of this for Nkrumah were the British Museum and the Smithsonian Museum, which developed displays relating not only to the respective past of their own countries, but also the continent to which they belong, as well as the peoples whom they had ruled or from whom they had descended. In 1956, Prime Minister Nkrumah paid a visit to egyptologist Pahor Labib at the Coptic Museum in Cairo and was given a tour of the museum.