James E.K. Aggrey

1875-1927. African orator and educator. Born at Anamabu, Ghana, he attended as a young Christian convert a Methodist mission school at Cape Coast and himself taught school until he went to the USA in 1898 to study at Livingstone College, Salisbury, North Carolina, from which he graduated with honors in 1902. He taught there for several years and served two small rural churches. He twice toured Africa with the Phelps-Stokes African Education Commission. In 1924 he became vice-principal of the new Achimota College in Ghana (then the Gold Coast). He died while in the USA to write his doctoral dissertation. Aggrey was a gifted Christian educator, an advocate of cooperation between the races, and a mediator between African and Western cultures.