1947–1950: (Nkrumah and the Birth of the CPP — The UGCC Founded in 1947 Under J.

1947–1950: (Nkrumah and the Birth of the CPP — The UGCC Founded in 1947 Under J. B. Danquah as a Moderate Middle-Class Party Favored by the British, Nkrumah Returning from the United States as a Pan-Africanist Radical, Growing Disillusioned with Danquah’s Moderation, Splitting in 1949 to Form the Convention People’s Party Inspired by Gandhi’s Positive Action, and His Arrest in 1950): New constitutions in 1942 and 1946 allowed direct elections to a legislative council, providing the opportunity for political party organization. In 1947 the United Gold Coast Convention was founded under J. B. Danquah, who belonged to a small professional middle-class elite — moderate and unwilling to break the law, the UGCC was the kind of party the British favored, appreciating Danquah’s tactic of eloquent argument to persuade the colonial government of the need for reform. But for a group of angry, restless young activists, such tactics held little appeal. The young pan-Africanist radical Kwame Nkrumah returned from the United States in 1947 to take up a post with the UGCC, but amid the rioting and rising social tensions he quickly grew disillusioned with Danquah’s party and split in 1949 to form the Convention People’s Party. Inspired in part by Gandhi’s example in India, the CPP advocated positive action: non-violent but willing to break the law, organizing strikes and boycotts. The British lost patience and in 1950 Nkrumah was arrested along with several other prominent leaders — the colonial state imagining, as colonial states always do, that imprisoning a man imprisons an idea.