<P> In August 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss their post-war goals . In that meeting, they agreed to the Atlantic Charter, which in part stipulated that they would, "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them ." This agreement became the post-WWII stepping stone toward independence as nationalism grew throughout Africa . </P> <P> Consumed with post-war debt, European powers were no longer able to afford the resources needed to maintain control of their African colonies . This allowed for African nationalists to negotiate decolonization very quickly and with minimal casualties . Some territories, however, saw great death tolls as a result of their fight for independence . </P> <P> On May 6, 1957, Ghana (formerly Gold Coast) became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence from European colonization in the twentieth century . </P> <P> Starting as early as the 1945 Pan-African Congress, Gold Coast's American - educated, independence leader Kwame Nkrumah made his focus clear . In the conference's declaration, he wrote, "we believe in the rights of all peoples to govern themselves . We affirm the right of all colonial peoples to control their own destiny . All colonies must be free from foreign imperialist control, whether political or economic ." </P>

Leader of the first sub saharan african nation to gain independence