OSAM-PINANKO, FRANK ATA

Frank Ata Osam-Pinanko (1875-1945) was the first African minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (A.M.E.Z.) Church in the Gold Coast.

PHOTO CAPTION: FRANK ATA OSAM-PINANKO SOURCE: EA Library

He was born at Dominase, about 20 mi (32 km) northeast of Cape Coast, in 1875. He was originally called Frank Arthur, but later, like his friend and contemporary S. R. B. Attoh-Ahuma, he changed his European name to an African one, when the two men were in the United States. .

He came from the Anona clan, and was the second son of Ata Atsiwa, a linguist of Abadzi, to the east of Cape Coast, and of his wife, Esi Nsedua. He was brought up by his paternal uncle, E. D. Hammond. He attended the Wesleyan schools at Saltpond, east of Cape Coast, and at Winneba, west of Accra, where he finished his elementary education in 1890, after which he became a teacher for a year. He attended the Cape Coast Collegiate School from 1891-93, and thereafter taught in the Wesleyan school at Winneba for three years, as well as in the Wesleyan school at Dixcove, 15 mi (24 km) west of Takoradi, for a year. He also taught for a year in the Cape Coast Grammar School.

When Bishop Bryan Small of the A.M.E.Z. Church decided to train Gold Coast youths for the ministry in order to establish an A.M.E.Z. mission in the country, Osam-Pinanko was recommended to him. J. E. K. Aggrey, who was to become a famous educator, had been sent to Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1898, and Osam-Pinanko followed him in 1899, arriving in December. He graduated in 1903, and was the valedictorian of the class of 1903.

Unlike Aggrey, Osam-Pinanko decided to return home to do missionary and educational work. The Africans in the British Methodist Mission welcomed the idea of a Methodist church run by black men. At the inauguration of the church in the Gold Coast in 1898, the Rev. T. B. Freeman Jr. made the point that the church, being “composed of Africans and entirely governed and worked by Africans was indeed bone of our bones, and flesh of our flesh,’ ” and that it would take greater interest in the country than would be possible” with Missionary Boards and missionaries of an alien race who are not above the color question.

The Gold Coast Aborigines also welcomed the idea of such a church. Therefore, when Osam-Pinanko returned to the Gold Coast in September 1903, he found supporters who enabled him to establish an A.M.E.Z. Church at Cape Coast that same month. In spite of difficulties, he was also able to start a school at Cape Coast in October, with six boys and a girl as foundation members, and with himself as the only teacher. Six months later he engaged another teacher, Moses D. Frans, to help him. With the aid of an engineer and a merchant, he also built a new church in Cape Coast.

He was ordained a deacon in 1910, and became a church elder in 1912. Livingstone College awarded him an M.A. in 1912, and later, in 1928, a doctorate in divinity. He returned to the United States to represent the Gold Coast at A.M.E.Z. conferences in 1908, 1912, 1928, and 1932. He held the post of general superintendent of the A.M.E.Z. Mission in the Gold Coast from 1920-24, and was later appointed general manager of the A.M.E.Z. schools. He did his best to open schools in the coastal districts, and had planned to open a secondary school, but did not realise this dream. The foundation of the Aggrey Memorial College at Cape Coast in the 1950s, under A.M.E.Z. auspices, is nevertheless a tribute to his vision and faith.

Although he took no active part in politics, he was a member of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (A.R.P.S.), and of the social and literary clubs which sought to remind Africans of the benefits of their customs, traditions, and languages. He was also a member of the National Congress of British West Africa, founded by. J. E. Casely Hayford, which was active immediately after World War I. He died in 1945.

L. H. OFOSU-APPIAH