THE independence of Ghana, the first African country to gain independence from colonialism 50 years ago, had tremendous impact on the continent’s quest for freedom and the black civil rights movement in the United States, a university Don has said.

Professor Frederick Kaijage of the history department at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) told a seminar on the occasion to mark Africa Day in Dar es Salaam yesterday that Ghana’s freedom under the popular and charismatic leadership of Osagefyo Kwame Nkrumah proved to the rest of the world that Africans could run their own affairs.

Ghana’s freedom provided special inspiration to the freedom train in French West Africa where many independence struggle leaders saw a shining beacon in the personal image of Kwame Nkrumah and the people of Ghana in general, he said in a paper entitled: “The impact of Ghana’s independent on the rest of Africa and the world.”

The independence also sent freedom vibes to the United States, through the presence of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr at the celebrations in Accra on June 30, 1957.

Slavery in the US had been abolished almost a century back but many forms of segregation and discrimination still remained well into the 1960s.