The President of Ghana, H.E., Nàna Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has announced plans to construct a state-of-the-art museum complex honoring the legacy of world-renown black intellectual and civil rights pioneer, Dr. W.E.B Du Bois, as an important symbolic monument.
According to President Akufo-Addo, “the museum will provide in Ghana, yet another important monument to the collective struggle of the African people to get their rightful place in this world”.
The signing took place in New York City where the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation is headquartered. The agreement was signed on behalf of the Government of Ghana by Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance of Ghana, and Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture.
Signing for the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation were Japhet Aryiku, Executive Director of the foundation in the U.S., and Humphrey Ayim-Darke, Board Member of the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation, Ghana.
Chairman of the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation, Daniel Rose, as he kicked off the ceremony said:
“Mr. President, let me reassure you of our commitment to making your beloved Ghana a hub of Pan-African research and heritage tourism”.
The Du Bois Memorial Centre in Accra, where Dr. Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, are buried, opened to the public in 1985, but in recent years, it required additional upkeep and maintenance. Two years ago, Daniel Rose and two board members of the foundation, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a professor at Harvard University and Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor at New York University whose father had worked with Dr. Du Bois, approached President Akufo-Addo about transforming the Du Bois Memorial Centre into a world-class living museum for scholars and heritage tourists.
The partnership arrangement grants authority for the W.E.B Du Bois Museum Foundation to construct a multi-million-dollar museum complex to preserve Dr. Du Bois’ legacy over a 50-year period. The complex will be designed by Sir David Adjaye, renowned Ghanaian architect and designer of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
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The Foundation’s goal is to realize the Du Bois Museum’s full potential as an international treasure and historic memorial honoring of one of the leading and most revered black voices in world history. The ambitious project features a museum, library and reading room, event hall, outdoor auditorium and amphitheater, lecture space, guest house for visiting scholars, and the refurbished bungalow where Dr. Du Bois lived and worked until his death. The complex also includes a Memorial Pavilion, housing the remains of Dr. Du Bois and the cremated ashes of his wife.
Dr. Du Bois, who was a confidant of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah, became a citizen of Ghana and resided in the country until he died in 1963. While living in Ghana, Du Bois envisioned building a unified ancestral home for Africans in the diaspora around the world.
President Akufo-Addo, thus has invited the African Diaspora to follow the footsteps of Du Bois by making Africa their home and contribute to the continent’s development through the government’s “Year of Return” and “Beyond the Return” campaigns.
“The ‘Beyond the Year of Return’ campaign promotes economic empowerment and encourages people in the Diaspora to come to Africa to invest, to live, and to do more to uplift the continent,” said Japhet Aryiku, Executive Director, W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation. Aryiku, a Ghanaian American with more than 40 years of experience in corporate America and the philanthropic community, was inspired at a young age by Du Bois’ writings and ideals.
Some dignitaries who also attended the event included Hon. Shirley Aryorkor Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs, H. E Hajia Alima Mahama, Ghana’s Ambassador to the USA, Akwasi Agyeman, CEO, Ghana Tourism Authority and Humphrey Ayim-Darke of the Du Bois Museum Foundation, Ghana.
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