Bankole 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. 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. 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.