Joe Appiah

Joseph Emmanuel Appiah, MP ( ; 16 November 1918 – 8 July 1990) was a Ghanaian lawyer, politician and statesman.

Biography He was born in Kumasi, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), on 26 November 1918, to Nana James W.K. Appiah and Nana Adwoa Akyaa, members of the Ashanti imperial aristocracy. His father was a schoolmaster, Methodist leader, traditional nobleman and, finally, Chief Secretary of Asanteman – a position that gave him considerable influence in Ashanti affairs. 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 Students' Union (WASU), eventually becoming its president.

Nkrumah was Appiah's first choice for best man at his wedding to Peggy Cripps in 1953 ("but the job went to arguably the more influential figure of George Padmore, a Trinidadian who was political mentor to African nationalist leaders, including Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta" 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.

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 was inspired by his father's easy cosmopolitanism.

Joe Appiah died in Accra on 8 July 1990, after an illness, and was buried at Tafo cemetery at Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. In 2008, Appiah's tomb was vandalised by unknown persons.

Books