The first time television was introduced to Ghana was in 1965, under State control. The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation held a monopoly on television broadcasting until 1994, following the 1992 constitution of the new democratically elected government.

But even in those periods, a lot of efforts were made to document Ghana’s history as much as possible, as can be seen in this 1959 video of what encapsulates the life of the people of Accra.

The 17-minutes-long black and white video shared by Roland Lartey on Facebook, details the hard work of the people, the landscape of the city of Accra, the well-demarcated streets, the fashion sense of the people, and other conversations that early Ghanaians of the independent country shared.

In the voice-over narration, it spoke about how Accra was the home of the central business of the country.

The video, showing the new Ghana after only three years of independence, depicted

“There was no harbour (sic) so cocoa was still loaded in the traditional method from the beach,” the narrator said over the portion of the video where some men were seen carrying heavy sacks of the beans into canoes lined up along the beaches.

Eventually, as can be seen in the video too, the Tema Harbour was built and completed by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1962.

It is a beautiful video that brings nostalgia to those who lived through some of those years, and a big history class for all others who only experienced the later years of Ghana.

Watch the video below:



AE