Way o-ver in the E-gypt land,
You shall gain the vic-to-ry, (Sundquist, 502)
Transcript:
February 17, 1963
Honorable Kwaku Boateng
Minister of the Interior
Accra.
Honorable Sir:
I am happy to address you this morning as a citizen of the Republic of Ghana. All the logic of my life leads me to this place. My great-grandfather was carried away in chains from the Gulf of Guinea. I have returned that my dust shall mingle with the dust of my forefathers.
In the poem “Ghana Calls” which I wrote on the occasion of the inauguration of the First President of the Republic of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, I attempted to express something of my inner feelings about the rebirth of this valiant African nation. The months during which I have lived among you have strengthened my deep bonds.
There is not much time left for me. But now my life will flow on in the vigorous, young stream of Ghana’s national life which lifts the African Personality to its proper place among men. And I shall not have lived and worked in vain.
Very sincerely yours,
W.E.B. Du Bois
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Ghana Ministry of the Interior, February 17, 1963. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b161-i178.