On January 19, 1922, Lucille Williamson Asenso Davis was born in Aiken,

South Carolina to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Williamson. The family migrated to Niagara

Falls, New York, where her father began working for Union Carbide in 1932.

Lucille, the oldest of eight siblings, was the only black student in her class

throughout her school years. Lucille recalled never seeing black people, except her

family members, until she went South to enter Spelman College in Atlanta Though she

had frequently questioned family, friends and teachers about Africa, the responses she

received were negative or misleading.. ."I kept saying there must be something beyond

this," she said.

During World War II, Lucille began working for the US Defense Department in

Washington DC and then went on to the University of California at Los Angeles to pursue

further studies... Her interest in Africa persisted until she decided to do her own library

research. She introduced herself to UCLA’s African students, asking questions and

seeking information about the Continent. In 1955, while living in Compton, California,

Lucille bought a gas station. She also wrote occasional articles for Jet magazine and the

Los Angeles Sentinel.

In the fall of 1956, Lucille spotted a newspaper notice about the Gold Coast

getting its independence in 1957. "Gee, I sure would like to be able to go and congratulate

a new African country," she recalled. Upon learning she needed certain documents to

travel, she secured her passport and then learned a visa would have to be issued by the

British High Commission.

The British Consulate officer was stunned to hear she wanted

to go to the Gold Coast... "Laughing, he asked me why I wanted to go there and how did I

know they wanted me there. Then he said he didn’t think he could give me one."

Determined, Lucille went back to Compton, sat down at her typewriter on her kitchen

table and wrote a long telex to Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, telling him of

her desire to come and what the British Consulate had said. Two weeks later, Lucille

heard from the Consulate telling her to come get her visa.

Lucille arrived in Ghana days before the March 7, 1957 Independence Day.

She was one of Nkrumah’s special guests at the Ambassador Hotel where she met Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr. and wife, Thurgood Marshall, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and

many- other notables. Her family was told of her travel plans on the eve of

departure.. . "My mother said the familyjust knew something was wrong with me."

On her return to Ghana the next year, Lucille stopped in Liberia and met

President Tubman on his birthday when the public were free to drop in to give him

greetings.

He asked her if she would like to be a citizen of Liberia.... "I can make you one

overnight, and I’ll give you forty acres of land in the interior," Lucille remembered.

In 1959, Lucille was invited by Sekou Toure, Guinea’s first African president, to

visit. She was President Toure’s first African American guest and discovered they both

shared the same birthday, ~ 9" January. He told her ofhow the French removed everything,

including the telephones when they left the country.

Lucille began working for Albert Owusu Ansah Asenso, who owned Ghana

Architectural & Civil Engineering, as his office manager. She set up his office on an

American basis and.. . "I think he was so impressed, he asked me to marry him." Their son,

Kojo I"4elvinAsenso was born in 1961; two years laterAlbert died. Lucille returned to the

States after Nkrumah died, and remained for several years working with Internal

Revenue Service.

On her return to the Continent with her son, Lucille stopped in Nigeria, went on

to Tanzania, then spent three years in Mombasa, Kenya, working at the YWCA. Since the

late 1 970s, Lucille has resided in Ghana on a regular basis, interspersed with trips to India,

France, Germany, USA and in1987 arrived in Fiji the day after its coup. "I had already

witnessed all the coups against Nkrumah," Lucille confided.

• Lucille Davis has served as a Warden for the US Embassy for over a decade and

was an active member of the African American Association of Ghana. She joined the

Bahai faith in the mid-70s.

The Beachcomber Guest House was started in the 1980s;

since then Lucille has

added four apartments to her five chalet guest houses and recently completed the

construction oftwo self-contained apartments.

Her determination, pioneering spirit and commitment has been an inspiration for

us all and set an exemplary model of womanhood.

She is dearly remembered by her son, Kojo Melvin Asenso, her brother Ted

Williamson, two sisters, Mrs. Barbara Walker and Mrs. Mary Beham inAmerica,

countless nieces and nephews, her stepchildren Mrs. Serwah Owusu-Ansah Jonah,

Rev. Jacob Agyeman Owusu-Ansah, Albert Bonsu Owusu-Ansah, Mary Akyhaa

Owusu-Ansah, Ebenezer Owusu-Ansah, Joseph Boateng Owusu-Ansah, Alberta

Nyantah Owusu-Ansah, and many admirers and friends.