J. E. Casely Hayford (1866-1903) was a Gold Coast lawyer, politician, journalist, and educator. He was a leading pan-African nationalist.

On Sept. 29, 1866, J. E. Casely Hayford was born of a prominent family in the coastal town of Cape Coast. He attended the Wesleyan Boys' High School there and Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone (1872-1874). In Freetown, at this time the leading educational and pan-African center in western Africa, Hayford became a staunch admirer and disciple of Edward Wilmot Blyden, the foremost pan-African figure of his time, who edited the Negro, the first explicitly pan-African journal in West Africa.

Although a militant advocate of African and pan-African causes, Hayford never became bitter and always acted "constitutionally." He was a dapper man of medium height, charming, and with a keen sense of humor. To point up the hypocrisy of "Christians," he often referred to himself as a "pagan...