Sixty years today since the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana.
At the Archives of Howard University, we came across the attached letter dated 4 April 1968, written by a Malawian called Emily Maliwa , to Dr Kwame Nkrumah .
At the time of writing, both were living in exile. Dr Kwame Nkrumah had been overthrown by a military junta on 24 February 1966 and was residing in Guinea-Conakry. Emily Maliwa was then pursuing her PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, having fled Malawi in July 1967 following the issuance of a warrant of arrest against her by the Malawi Police.
Their paths had crossed a decade earlier. In July 1958, when Dr Nkrumah visited Washington, D.C., Emily Maliwa was an undergraduate student at Howard University. It was during that visit that she met the Ghanaian leader.
What prompted Emily Maliwa to write to Dr Nkrumah on 4 April 1968?
What concerns, reflections, or appeals did she raise in her correspondence?
These are questions that shed light not only on her personal intellectual journey but also on the broader networks of African nationalist and Pan-African thought in the era of post-independence upheavals.
For further insights, watch out for the forthcoming tribute article on Emily Maliwa, recently finalised by the Lost History Foundation (LHF).
But who was Emily Maliwa?
She is regarded as:
- The first woman from Malawi to travel overseas for further studies.
- The first Malawian woman to obtain postgraduate qualifications, including a PhD.
- Malawi’s first legal historian.
- A pioneering gender scholar and women’s rights activist.
She was also among the legal scholars who participated in the February 1994 deliberations held at Mount Soche Hotel and the Kwacha Conference Centre, meetings that laid important groundwork for the drafting of Malawi’s new republican Constitution.
She did not live long enough to witness the full implementation of the new Constitution to which she had contributed. She died on 15 August 1994 in Kanjedza Township, Blantyre after suffering a severe stroke.