Forgotten Heroes of Ghana’s Freedom Struggle: Hannah Cudjoe
Known as “Convention Hannah”, this pioneering activist played a leading role in Ghana’s struggle for independence and worked to improve the lives of women in the country. Her resilience continues to inspire us today. The story of Ghana’s independence cannot be told without the story of Hannah Cudjoe (1918-1986).
Born in Busua (near Dixcove), in the Ahanta District in the Western Region of the Gold Coast in December 1918 to Mr. and Mrs. John Peter Dadson of Busua, Kudjoe was the youngest of 10 children. She was one of the privileged few girls who went to school in an era where few girls went to school. She started her elementary education at Busua Methodist School and completed at Sekondi Methodist School. After finishing school, she became a popular dressmaker in Tarkwa, where she married J. C. Kudjoe. He was a manager of Abontiako gold mines near Tarkwa. The marriage did not last, and she began living with her brother, E. K. Dadson, a prominent United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) activist.
Originally a dressmaker, she was living with her brother when Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian politician, visited the house in 1947. This inspired her move into politics, and she became a passionate crusader. When the Big Six of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) were arrested in 1948, Cudjoe staged demonstrations and campaigned for their release.
Cudjoe played a crucial role in the Convention People’s Party and in Positive Action, the civil disobedience movement that paved the way for the end of British colonial rule. But her activism did not stop with independence. She worked tirelessly to improve the lives of women in Ghana, too, founding the All-African Women’s League in 1960.
She was a founding member of the Committee of Youth Organization (CYO) within the UGCC and was one of the seven signatories who endorsed an April 1949 document that threatened a full split away from the UGCC if Kwame Nkrumah wasn’t reinstated as the party’s general secretary. She eventually moved to join the CPP after Nkrumah’s split from the UGCC.
Kudjoe rose to become the organizer and the National Propaganda Secretary of the CPP. In that role, she toured the country advocating the need for independence and organizing rallies propagating the Nkrumah movement and the CPP. She was an extremely effective organizer, mobilizing many people, including women, to join the CPP. The CPP eventually won the 1951 elections and Kwame Nkrumah became the leader of Government business. After the 1951 elections, she focused more on her role in the party by growing the party’s base and building support.
Whilst working in her official roles with the CPP in the 1950s and 1960s, Kudjoe was also undertaking social welfare works within the Northern regions of Ghana teaching both young women and adults basic life skills in hygiene, home keeping, dressing and how to raise children.
After Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown by the military on 24 February 1966, Kudjoe left the political scene like every CPP member and returned to her private life. She continued with her philanthropic works in the north through the 1970s and 1980s until she died in 1986. Her final scene in the public domain was when she addressed an International Women’s Day symposium at the Accra Community Centre on 8 March 1986, the night before she died.
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