Joe Appiah

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Joseph Emmanuel Appiah (1918 - 1990) was born at Adum in Kumasi, Ghana, the son of James Appiah and Adwoa Akyaa. Both parents were relations of the Asantehene. His father was a schoolmaster and a Methodist elder. Appiah was educated at Wesley College, Mfantsipim, and the Middle Temple.

During his time in the United Kingdom, he was closely involved with the West African Student's Union (WASU, as was), eventually becoming its president. He came, through residence in London and involvement with WASU, to know many of the main players in the fight against imperial rule in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. Not least among these was Kwame Nkrumah, to whom he became very close. Nkrumah was Appiah's first choice for best man at his wedding to Peggy Appiah (née Peggy Cripps) in 1953. Their son, the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, was born in London in 1954.

Appiah and his young family returned to Ghana in late 1954. Soon after, his friendship with Nkrumah was ruined. He joined the National Liberation Movement (NLM) party and won the Atwima-Amansie seat in 1957. After the General Afrifa-led coup that overthrew Nkrumah in 1966, he was asked to explain the new regime's motives to Ghana's friends and neighbours. Appiah was intermittently involved in public life as a diplomat and a government minister from then on until his retirement in 1978.

He returned to Kumasi, where he continued to fulfill his duties as a clan elder. His autobiography Joe Appiah: The Autobiography of an African Patriot was published in 1990. Kwame Anthony Appiah's In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture is inspired throughout by the example of his father's easy cosmopolitanism, which remained faithful to his origins.

Appiah is remarkable for the consistency of his moderate nationalism, his Pan-Africanism, his cosmopolitanism and the steadying role he played in post-independence Ghanain politics. His autobiography is an important source for the late colonial/early post-colonial period in Africa.

Of note, he had a grandson who played international rugby.

[edit] Books

• Appiah, Joseph (1990) The Autobiography of an African Patriot, Praeger: New York
• Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1993) In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, OUP: New York