BLACK STAR LINE. WIKI. TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN
President Kwame Nkrumah visits the Volta River, Ghana's first merchant ship, in 1957
The Ghanaian shipping company Black Star Line Ltd. (BSL) existed from 1957 to 1982.
Captain Tachie-Menson returned home to Ghana in 1960 on Elder Dempster’s passenger liner, Aureol. Later that year, in response to an urgent call on him by the chairman and the board of directors of Ghana’s rapidly expanding national shipping company, Black Star Line, which Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, had formed soon after Ghana gained its independence from the United Kingdom, Captain Tachie-Menson joined the company.[2] Shortly thereafter, he was appointed as captain of the S.S. Tano River, one of the four ships owned and operated by Black Star Line at the time, thereby becoming not only the first black African to ever be appointed to command a merchant navy ship, but also the first Ghanaian to become a Master Mariner and captain of a foreign-going vessel.[1][7][8][9][10]
Captain Tachie-Menson continued his career as a captain with the Black Star Line's Fleet for several years, trailblazing several voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Baltic and North Seas on the Tano River and subsequently the Nasia River.[1][11][12]
It was in his capacity as captain of these two ships that Tachie-Menson first gained recognition and reverence in the North American continent, especially by notable civil rights activists in the US.[13
Captain Tachie-Menson