Download or read book A Liberian Life written by D. Elwood Dunn and published by Afrika-Studiecentrum. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Liberian academic and former government official accounts for and reflects upon half a century of work and experience. An important Liberian political memoir, the book is at once Dunn's critical exposition on his country and an attempt to explain how Liberia came to be what it is today. In 26 captivating chapters he recounts careers as academic, and services as aide to slain Liberian President Tolbert and consultant to former President Johnson Sirleaf. Between government service in crisis times (late 1970s) and in hopeful times (early 2000s) is positioned more than three decades of University teaching and research.

Download or read book Madame President written by Helene Cooper and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BEST BOOKS of 2017 SELECTION by * THE WASHINGTON POST * NEW YORK POST * The harrowing, but triumphant story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, leader of the Liberian women’s movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first democratically elected female president in African history. When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head of state in Africa’s history. Madame President is the inspiring, often heartbreaking story of Sirleaf’s evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother of four boys to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian women. The highs and lows of Sirleaf’s life are filled with indelible images; from imprisonment in a jail cell for standing up to Liberia’s military government to addressing the United States Congress, from reeling under the onslaught of the Ebola pandemic to signing a deal with Hillary Clinton when she was still Secretary of State that enshrined American support for Liberia’s future. Sirleaf’s personality shines throughout this riveting biography. Ultimately, Madame President is the story of Liberia’s greatest daughter, and the universal lessons we can all learn from this “Oracle” of African women.

Download or read book Liberia South Carolina written by John M. Coggeshall and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2007, while researching mountain culture in upstate South Carolina, anthropologist John M. Coggeshall stumbled upon the small community of Liberia in the Blue Ridge foothills. There he met Mable Owens Clarke and her family, the remaining members of a small African American community still living on land obtained immediately after the Civil War. This intimate history tells the story of five generations of the Owens family and their friends and neighbors, chronicling their struggles through slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and the desegregation of the state. Through hours of interviews with Mable and her relatives, as well as friends and neighbors, Coggeshall presents an ethnographic history that allows members of a largely ignored community to speak and record their own history for the first time. This story sheds new light on the African American experience in Appalachia, and in it Coggeshall documents the community's 150-year history of resistance to white oppression, while offering a new way to understand the symbolic relationship between residents and the land they occupy, tying together family, memory, and narratives to explain this connection.

Download or read book The Myth of Self Reliance written by Naohiko Omata and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many refugees, economic survival in refugee camps is extraordinarily difficult. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative research , this volume challenges the reputation of a ‘self-reliant’ model given to Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana and sheds light on considerable economic inequality between refugee households.By following the same refugee households over several years, The Myth of Self-Reliance also provides valuable insights into refugees’ experiences of repatriation to Liberia after protracted exile and their responses to the ending of refugee status for remaining refugees in Ghana.

Download or read book A Liberian Life written by D. Elwood Dunn and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Liberian academic and former government official accounts for and reflects upon half a century of work and experience. An important Liberian political memoir, the book is at once Dunn’s critical exposition on his country and an attempt to explain how Liberia came to be what it is today. In 26 captivating chapters he recounts careers as academic, and services as aide to slain Liberian President Tolbert and consultant to former President Johnson Sirleaf. Between government service in crisis times (late 1970s) and in hopeful times (early 2000s) is positioned more than three decades of University teaching and research.

Download or read book This Child Will Be Great written by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-04-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 2006, after the Republic of Liberia had been racked by fourteen years of brutal civil conflict, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—Africa's "Iron Lady"—was sworn in as president, an event that marked a tremendous turning point in the history of the West African nation. In this stirring memoir, Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power, including her early childhood; her experiences with abuse, imprisonment, and exile; and her fight for democracy and social justice. This compelling tale of survival reveals Sirleaf's determination to succeed in multiple worlds: from her studies in the United States to her work as an international bank executive to her election campaigning in some of Liberia's most desperate and war-torn villages and neighborhoods. It is also the story of an outspoken political and social reformer who, despite danger, fought the oppression of dictators and championed change. By sharing her story, Sirleaf encourages women everywhere to pursue leadership roles at the highest levels of power, and gives us all hope that, with perseverance, we can change the world.

Download or read book Shattered Chasm written by Michael W Nicholson and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global perceptions about Liberia tend to cover up its lighter side-or, at least, the very positive feelings so many people have had about living and working in the country. This book is about the professional and personal experiences of a U.S. government economist living in Liberia from 2012 to 2014. Embracing the concept of the "chasm" of culture, politics, and history between citizens of Western countries and the poorest of the poor, its central thesis holds that all of us ultimately do live in the same world. The collected stories engage the lifestyle of an expat aid worker while raging against the culture of charity, steeped in pity, that often feeds the machine of development work that makes that lifestyle a cliché. Pity is demoralizing and dehumanizing. Don't pity other people, ever.

Download or read book Liberia written by Gabriel I. H. Williams and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 24, 1989, a group of Libyan-trained armed dissidents, which styled itself the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), attacked Liberian territory from neighboring Ivory Coast. The band of outlaws was led by Charles Taylor, an ex-Liberia government official who escaped from prison in the United States while facing extradition to Liberia for allegedly embezzling nearly one million dollars of public funds. After he fled the U.S. Taylor returned to West Africa, from where he connected with Libya. Sustained by Libyan support, Taylor went to Liberia to spearhead his murderous brand of civil war. Liberia's dictatorial leader Samuel Doe responded to the NPFL invasion by deploying troops in the conflict area, whose senior ranks were dominated by the military strongman's own ethnic group. The government forces carried out collective punishment against local villagers, killing, looting, and raping, while singling out people from certain ethnic groups whom they regarded as supporters of the invasion by reason of their ethnic identity. The NPFL also targeted members of Doe's ethnic group and other ethnic groups that were seen to be supportive of the government, as well as its officials and sympathizers. As the war spread from the interior toward the Liberian capital of Monrovia amid widespread death and destruction, the United States responded to the deteriorating situation by dispatching four warships with 2,300 marines to evacuate Americans and other foreigners who were in the country. The U.S. decided not to intervene to contain the unfolding catastrophe. Officials of the George Bush administration maintained that Liberia, which was then America's closest traditional ally in Africa, was no longer of strategic importance to the U.S. Coincidentally, the Liberian civil war started at the time the Cold War was ending. Located on the West Coast of Africa, Liberia was founded in 1822 by freed black American slaves who were returned to the continent. Their passage was paid by the American Colonization Society, a philanthropic organization, whose members included Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. The Liberian capital Monrovia is named after Monroe, who was president of the United States at the time Liberia was founded. The country's national flag of red, white and blue stripes with a star, bears close resemblance to the American flag. The systems of government and education, architecture and other aspects of Liberian life reflect American taste. Names of places in the country include Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana and Buchanan. More than anywhere in Africa, spoken English in Liberia echoes the rhythms of Black American speech. Liberia served as the regional headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and hosted a Voice of America relay station that beamed American propaganda, as well as other major U.S. security installations during the Cold War. The Americans also operated the Omega Navigation Tower, which was intended to track the movement of ships and planes in the region and beyond. Once one of Africa's most stable and prosperous countries, Liberia was regarded as a haven for international trade and commerce because of the use of the American dollar as a legal tender. Major U.S. investments in the country included the Firestone Rubber Plantation, the world's largest plantation, which produce rubber for Firestone tires, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Citibank. Pan American Airlines (PAN AM) once operated Liberia's Roberts International Airport, where U.S. fighter jets have landing rights. During part of the 1970s, Liberia's per capita income was equivalent to that of Japan. Independent since 1847 as Africa's first republic, Liberia's plunge into anarchy began after a bloody military coup that ended the rule of descendants of the freed slaves, who monopolized political and economic power for over a century. During the 1980 coup, President William Tolbert, who tried to institute some meaningful po

Download or read book Liberia written by Frank Sherman and published by New Africa Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is a general introduction to Liberia. It is comprehensive in scope covering a wide range of subjects from a historical and contemporary perspective. It is intended for members of the general public. But some members of the academic community may also find this work to be useful in their fields. Subjects covered include an overview of the country and its geography including all the regions - known as counties - and the different ethnic groups who live there. The work is also a historical study of Liberia since the founding of the country by freed black American slaves. One of the subjects covered in the book is the conflicts - including wars - the new black American settlers had with the indigenous people. The freed slaves who, together with their descendants, came to be known as Americo-Liberians, dominated the country and excluded the indigenous people from the government and other areas of national life for almost 160 years until the Americo-Liberian rulers were overthrown in a military coup in 1980. It was one of the bloodiest military coups in modern African history. The soldiers who overthrew the government were members of native tribes and were hailed as liberators by the indigenous people who had been dominated and had suffered discrimination at the hands of Americo-Liberians throughout the nation's history. Some of them were even sold into slavery in Panama by the Americo-Liberian rulers in the 1930s, prompting an investigation of the labour scandal by the League of Nations. Others were forced to work on various projects within Liberia itself and became virtual slaves in their own country. Americo-Liberians saw the natives as inferior to them and treated them that way. The mistreatment of the members of native tribes by the Americo-Liberians was one of the main reasons native soldiers of the Liberian army decided to overthrow the government. The book also covers the Liberian civil war which destroyed the country in the 1990s and early 2000s, a conflict which also had historical roots. The conflict is attributed to the inequalities between Americo-Liberians and the indigenous people which existed throughout the nation's history. But its immediate cause was the brutalities Liberians suffered under the military rulers who overthrew the Americo-Liberian-dominated government. Another major subject covered in the book is the ethnic composition of Liberia. The work looks at all the ethnic groups in the country and their home regions - counties - as well as their cultures, providing a comprehensive picture of life in contemporary times in Africa's oldest republic. The national culture of Liberia in general is also another subject addressed in the book. The author has also addressed another very important subject: indigenous forms of writing invented by the members of different tribes or ethnic groups in Liberia. The indigenous scripts are a major contribution to civilisation and Liberia stands out among all the countries on the African continent as the country which has the largest number of these forms of writing. People going to Liberia for the first time, and anybody else who wants to learn about this African country, may find this work to be useful.

Download or read book My Improbable Journey to America written by Jarvis Sankalan Mengarpuan and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2021-11-08 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author Sankalan was in the sixth grade when his guardians threw him out of their government-owned house in the picturesque community of Germany, Kakata, Liberia, West Africa. Why? Because he went to borrow a uniform from his friend to sit for the Liberian Government national examinations designed for sixth, ninth, and twelfth graders in the sixties and seventies. Booker Washington Institute (BWI) campus was the site of the exams. The old uniform he had showed his naked anatomy in public, which was not only humiliating but embarrassingly inappropriate in such public arena. How did he continue school as an independent homeless youth in his home country, Liberia? What difficult circumstances did he experience in Liberia during his formative years in the quest of education? What propelled him to undertake this incredible journey to the United States of America, a country in which many Africans or Liberians believe that ‘Money grows on trees,’ a country in which people are territorial by nature and protective of their personal space, a country in which the culture values are diametrically opposed to the African or Liberian way of life? How did he maintain his moral integrity to his family, after he was pressured to engage in an illegal marriage proposal to obtain permanent resident status (Green Card) in his first year in the America? And how did he successfully complete his educational journey with perseverance despite insurmountable problems along his path in the US? Answers to these questions are chronicled in this riveting account of an intrepid Liberian in his book: My Improbable Journey to America—A Memoir of Reflections.

Download or read book American Warlord written by Johnny Dwyer and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2015 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of "Chucky" Taylor, a young American who lost his soul in Liberia, the country where his African father was a ruthless warlord and dictator.

Download or read book Stories of Liberian Life written by Ruth M. Reeves and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Journey from the Village written by Alfred Boymah Zinnah Kennedy and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Boymah Zinnah Kennedy was born in a Gola village in Liberia in 1944. When he was ten his father died and he was fostered out to several settler families. With the help of two Peace Corps volunteers, he finally began regular schooling at 16 at Suehn Industrial Academy, graduating at the top of his class in 1968. He then earned a degree in agriculture at the University of Liberia and became an oil palm specialist, eventually heading the Butaw Oil Palm Corporation. In 1990 as the civil war began he left his government position and his own poultry and soap making enterprises to take his family to safety in Britain. He earned a master's in agricultural economics at the University of Kentucky in 1993 and has held various jobs in Britain and tried several ventures in Liberia, including presently the Mission for Life Ministries. This memoir begins with a Gola village boy in Liberia describing everyday life, including fishing, hunting, and primary school, and change such as the railroad in the decade 1944 to 1954. He spends another eight troubled years mostly in foster settler families as a houseboy, not attending school regularly. His years at Suehn Industrial Academy, 1962-68, and then at the University of Liberia majoring in agriculture are special ones. The village boy becomes an oil palm specialist, marries and has two children, but his dreams are halted by civil war beginning in 1990 and an exile in the U.S. and Britain. From first-hand experience, Alfred Boymah Zinnah Kennedy writes eloquently about the oppression and hard work of ordinary indigenous Liberians and the tragedy of war. A description of a "crossing over ceremony" he organized for his clan in 2000 concludes the book.

Download or read book Dream Country written by Shannon Gibney and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heartbreaking story of five generations of young people from a single African-and-American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom. "Gut wrenching and incredible.”— Sabaa Tahir #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes "This novel is a remarkable achievement."—Kelly Barnhill, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery medalist "Beautifully epic."—Ibi Zoboi, author American Street and National Book Award finalist Dream Country begins in suburban Minneapolis at the moment when seventeen-year-old Kollie Flomo begins to crack under the strain of his life as a Liberian refugee. He's exhausted by being at once too black and not black enough for his African American peers and worn down by the expectations of his own Liberian family and community. When his frustration finally spills into violence and his parents send him back to Monrovia to reform school, the story shifts. Like Kollie, readers travel back to Liberia, but also back in time, to the early twentieth century and the point of view of Togar Somah, an eighteen-year-old indigenous Liberian on the run from government militias that would force him to work the plantations of the Congo people, descendants of the African American slaves who colonized Liberia almost a century earlier. When Togar's section draws to a shocking close, the novel jumps again, back to America in 1827, to the children of Yasmine Wright, who leave a Virginia plantation with their mother for Liberia, where they're promised freedom and a chance at self-determination by the American Colonization Society. The Wrights begin their section by fleeing the whip and by its close, they are then the ones who wield it. With each new section, the novel uncovers fresh hope and resonating heartbreak, all based on historical fact. In Dream Country, Shannon Gibney spins a riveting tale of the nightmarish spiral of death and exile connecting America and Africa, and of how one determined young dreamer tries to break free and gain control of her destiny.

Download or read book The Liberian Civil War written by Mark Huband and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The civil war in 1989 promised freedom from ten years of vicious dictatorship; instead the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown. Mark Huband's account of the conflict is a portrayal of the war as it unfolded, drawing on the author's experience of living amongst the fighters.

Download or read book Development Dual Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa written by Robtel Neajai Pailey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on rich oral histories, this is an engaging study of citizenship construction and practice in Liberia, Africa's first black republic.

Download or read book The Walk written by Chantale Wesley-Lamin and published by Wesley Lamin Books. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *INCLUDES BONUS DISCUSSION GUIDE! **PORTION OF PROCEEDS BENEFIT CHARITY. What is it like to be on the other side of the gun, running for your life and losing everything? What if you are only eleven years old? The Walk is a real life account of an adolescent boy, Brima Lamin, whose desperation for survival took him across several foreign countries ultimately seeking refuge in the United States. In this gripping memoir, the author tells how the entire course of his life was changed on one horrendous day, July 2, 1990 when rebel soldiers armed with AK-47s stormed his neighborhood. Over the course of four years to follow, he witnessed brutal atrocities barely escaping death during what many call one of the most horrific wars of all time, the Liberian Civil War. In the midst of losing it all, he came of age, found God and was able to come to a country that he had always dreamed about. The Walk challenges the reader to wonder how they will "walk" in the midst of the storm.