Bankole Awoonor-Renner

Bankole Awoonor Renner
Born(1898-06-06)6 June 1898
Elmina, British Gold Coast
Died27 May 1970(1970-05-27) (aged 71)
EducationCarnegie Institute of Technology;
Communist University of the Toilers of the East;
Institute of Journalists
OccupationJournalist
FatherPeter Awoonor-Renner

Kweku Bankole Awoonor-Renner (6 June 1898 – 27 May 1970) was a Ghanaian politician, journalist, anti-colonialist and Pan-Africanist. In 1921, Awoonor-Renner travelled to the United States (US) to study journalism at Carnegie Institute of Technology. While studying in the US, Awoonor-Renner joined the CPUSA.

Early life

Bankole Awoonor-Renner was born on 6 June 1898 in Elmina in the Gold Coast, a British colony in West Africa. His father Peter Awoonor-Renner was a lawyer and first leader of the Gold Coast bar. Awoonor-Renner attended boarding school in Cape Coast.

Years abroad

In 1921, Awoonor-Renner travelled to the US to study journalism at Carnegie Institute of Technology. While studying in the US, he joined the CPUSA. In 1925, Awoonor-Renner travelled from the US to the Soviet Union along with nine other black men to study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV). He is considered to be the first Black African to study in the Soviet Union. In 1927, he left the Soviet Union for Great Britain, where he furthered his studies in journalism at the Institute of Journalists in London, becoming the first African to graduate from the Institute.

Return to the Gold Coast

On his return to the Gold Coast, Awoonor-Renner became editor of the Gold Coast Leader newspaper.

In 1934, Awoonor-Renner and several others, including Ellis Brown, I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and Robert Benjamin Wuta-Ofei, founded the West African Youth League (WAYL) in the Gold Coast. Awoonor-Renner was elected President of the WAYL.

He converted to Islam in 1942, winning a seat on the Accra city council as part of the Moslem Party.

In 1945, he attended the fifth Pan-African Congress, in Manchester, representing the Friends of African Freedom Society.

Initially a colleague of Kwame Nkrumah, Awoonor-Renner helped Ghana's first president found the Convention People's Party (CPP), being imprisoned alongside Nkrumah in 1950. Awoonor-Renner later broke with Nkrumah and established the Moslem Association Party.

Personal life

Awoonor-Renner met his wife Olabisi Awoonor-Renner (nee Alakija) in London. They married in April 1944 and had five children together: four sons and one daughter.

Later life

Following the prohibition of political pluralism in the 1960s, Awoonor-Renner retired from politics, dying in poverty.

References

  1. ↑ Sherwood, Marika (2017). "Awoonor-Renner, Bankole". Oxford African American Studies Center. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.73486. ISBN 978-0-19-530173-1. Retrieved 4 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  2. 1 2 3 Osei-Opare, Nana (April 2023). "Ghana and Nkrumah Revisited: Lenin, State Capitalism, and Black Marxist Orbits". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 65 (2): 412. doi:10.1017/S0010417522000548. ISSN 0010-4175.
  3. ↑ Weiss, Holger (1 January 2014). Framing a Radical African Atlantic. BRILL. p. 68. doi:10.1163/9789004261686. ISBN 978-90-04-26168-6.
  4. ↑ McClellan, Woodford (1993). "Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925-1934". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 26 (2): 371–390. doi:10.2307/219551. JSTOR 219551.
  5. ↑ Hanretta, Sean (2011). "'Kaffir' Renner's Conversion: Being Muslim in Public in Colonial Ghana". Past & Present (210): 187–220. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtq009. ISSN 0031-2746. JSTOR 23015376.
  6. ↑ Asante, S. K. B. (1975). "I.t.a. Wallace Johnson and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis". Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria. 7 (4): 631–646. ISSN 0018-2540. JSTOR 41971218.
  7. ↑ Adi, Hakim; Sherwood, Marika (1995). The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress Revisited. New Beacon Books. ISBN 978-1-873201-12-1.
  8. ↑ de Boyer, Antoine (16 March 2016). "AWOONOR-RENNER Bankole, Kweku". Maitron (in French). Archived from the original on 8 February 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2021.