The Second Emancipation recasts the liberation of post-Second World War colonial Africa and the American civil rights struggle through the lens of Ghana's revolutionary visionary Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), who emerges as the most significant African leader of the twentieth century. Howard W. French newly dramatises the Nkrumah story, a continent in the throes of liberation and a roiling United States in the Cold War era.

In its dramatic depiction of a continent that once exuded the promise of a newly won freedom, The Second Emancipation positions not only Africa but also the American civil rights movement at the forefront of modern-day history.