Anthony Morgan, Jr.

Gronah Boys, Pop Doe and Revolution:

Monrovia in the 1970s

"And over Liberia's altar fires
she wide the Lone Star Flag unfurled
proclaimed to an expectant world
the birth of Africa's sons and sires
the birth of liberty!" — Edwin J. Barclay

In 1969, an unprecedented event shook Monrovia to its foundations. The Episcopal Bishop, a black America named Dillard Houston Brown, was assassinated in his Chase Manhattan Plaza office.

Bishop Brown was shot in the head, along with the Diocese Treasurer, white American Claude Nader, and their secretary. A day or two later, a chemistry professor at Cuttington College was arrested near Gbarnga and charged. Justin M. Obi, a Nigerian, had been recruited to Cuttington from America with promises of tenure which were not kept, for whatever reason. Obi was tried, convicted, and hanged at Monrovia Central Prison, leaving a shocked city a topic of conversation for weeks, and perhaps a glaring omen of what the coming decades were to bring.

The sixties had been very prosperous, with the Free Port, the iron ore mining concessions, the maritime registry program, and other foreign investments. The American dollar attracted people from all over Africa and the world, lending Monrovia a very cosmopolitan flavor. The middle class doubled in size, aided by the LAP program. The Legal Promissory Allowance enabled workers to purchase luxury goods and obtain home loans on a guarantee from the government. Liberia contributed troops to the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo, and United Nations Ambassador Angie Brooks presided over the 24th General Assembly. Lavish celebrations were held in the counties on a rotational basis to mark the president's birthday, and the annual Independence Day festivities featured a dazzling display of military pomp and circumstance, culminating in the Independence Day Ball at the Executive Pavilion.

Twenty-Six Day began with an air of excitement and anticipation as the cannon up at Fort Norris on the cape noisily rang in another year in the life of Africa's first republic. But underneath all this prosperity were roiling currents of seething discontent as the underclass, trapped in poverty and squalor, watched the gap between themselves and the rich grow ever wider with each independence celebration. And like the rich and powerful everywhere, the upper classes were blissfully unaware of, or totally indifferent to, the suffering, complaining, and increasingly resentful masses of people.

At nine years old, I didn't know anything about economic disparity and class divisions, as people streamed by our house on Carey Street next to the Treasury, heading for Ashmun Street and the parade. My cousins and I helped my grandfather hoist the Lone Star on the mast in front of the house, alongside the Grand Lodge of Masons flag.

Soldiers, policemen and women, Coast Guard and paramilitary people, all in their finest dress uniforms, stopped to talk to my grandfather. Most of Monrovia knew the jovial, humorous, Paymaster at Public Works for many years. From the market women he flirted with, to the laborers and yanna boys he traded jokes with, they all called him Old man Liles, Claudy Liles, or simply, "that crazy old man with the green jeep." By age ten, my cousins and I were on Ashmun Street, among huge crowds of people, as the first units of soldiers came down the hill. Our excitement grew as we spotted Uncle Johnny, resplendent in full military regalia at the head of the Grand Bassa Detachment. General John Horace was my grandfather's cousin who came from Buchanan to stay with us for the occasion.

The soldiers were followed by beautifully decorated floats representing the counties or corporate sponsors, one carrying Miss Liberia, looking regal and queenly. Then more military bands and more soldiers, until I could close my eyes and still see them marching, "Old soldier never dies" playing over and over in my head. In the afternoon was the children's garden party at the Executive Mansion, and at night, fireworks.

Meanwhile, in Westpoint and Slipway, children went to bed hungry, not knowing whether or not they were going to eat the following day.

1970 came and went without incident and it seemed the prosperity of the Sixties would carry over into the new decade. Then another momentous event shook Monrovia.

It was July 1971, and like other eleven year old, I was looking forward to YMCA camp in Todee at the end of the school year. We turned on the TV one evening at 6 PM, when ELTV went on the air. Instead of the usual programming, we saw a black screen with the white caption, "The nation mourns." The screen stayed that way for about an hour as they played somber, mournful organ music and we all wondered which big shot had kicked the bucket. Then about 7:00, G. Henry Andrews came on to announce that President Tubman had died that day in a London clinic.

William V. S. Tubman was a larger than life figure who cast a giant shadow over the country. The ultimate control freak, he and his security network kept a firm grip on everything, and no dissent was tolerated. At the same time, it's safe to say that Vac was probably the most beloved president since J. J. Roberts, with an amazing ability to unite all the country's ethnic groups. This intriguing paradox begs analysis and we could start with how his presidency began.

Tubman's career in public service started with a law practice in his hometown of Harper, Maryland. He and his law partner, J. Gbaflen Davis provided legal defense to the underprivileged, earning him a reputation as "the poor man's lawyer."

After a stint as a Supreme Court Associate Justice, he was elected president in 1943, on a reform platform that promised to bring the people of the then Northern, Eastern and Western provinces into fuller participation in the life of the nation, replacing their colonial subject status with citizenship. His Unification Program was largely successful, which explains his popularity with the rural population, and he also granted women suffrage. His Open Door Policy brought in foreign investment, creating jobs and transforming Monrovia from a dusty little town into a bustling, beautiful, major West African port city. He was instrumental in the founding of the OAU, hosting its first heads of State Summit in Sanniquellie. But he also headed the neocolonialist Monrovia Group, which opposed plans for the economic and political unification of Africa championed by the Casablanca Group of Pan-Africanists.

Tubman's reputation as a champion of the poor enabled him to rout the opposition in two successive elections, the second one against two combined parties, the Independent True Whigs and the Reformation party, with the equally popular former president Edwin J. Barclay as their standard bearer. Following that election in 1955, an attempt was made on Tubman's life at a reception in the Executive Pavilion. After that, all political opposition was viewed with immediate suspicion as a personal threat against "the old man." The National Bureau of Investigation and the National Intelligence and Security Service saw to it that all significant opposition was somehow discredited or run out of the country. Informants for the NBI and NISS could be anyone.

What happened to the democrat who championed the cause of the poor?

He was replaced by "the chief," which was how most of the nation perceived him anyway, not fully grasping the concept of president. Even with the greatest of African leaders, from Toussaint Louverture to Kenyatta, Nyerere, Kaunda and Senghor, whatever democratic ideals they start out with are invariably subverted, replaced with a sense of entitlement fostered by the sycophantic worship of those around them. In the midst of fear and repression, the old man's popularity grew, demonstrated in the outpouring of loyalty at his annual birthday celebration in each of the nine counties.

A national period of mourning was declared after President Tubman's death, business came to a standstill, and cars were ordered off the streets. The war dancers came out in great numbers, since he was from Cape Palmas, home of the Grebo and their cousins the Kru. Their war dance was performed on the deaths of great chiefs, and they painted their bodies, adorned themselves with palm thatch and amulets, and danced through the streets waving cutlasses. Seeing them for the first time at eleven, I felt a mixture of fascination and fear. We were living in Point Four, next door to New Kru Town, the sprawling, vibrant, colorful, exciting community of the seafaring Krus.

Related culturally and linguistically to the Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the Kru were one of the two most powerful coastal societies at the time of the settlers' arrival on Cape Mesurado in 1822. The other was the Vai. The militaristic Vais and Krus posed the greatest threat to the colony's survival, but interestingly, after they'd been subdued by Monrovia's superior firepower, aided by an occasional American naval gunship, both groups joined the Bassa in the most rapid integration with the settlers, producing many great Liberians.

The huge numbers of war dancers signified that the Krus and Grebos claimed Tubman as one of their own. Vac's death ushered in a new era that saw the disappearance of his welfare programs, tighter economic times, skyrocketing inflation, and rising discontent. His successor, Vice President William R. Tolbert's first Executive Orders signaled a move away from the old neocolonialist tradition towards a closer identification with Pan-Africanism.

Tolbert changed the names of cabinet agencies and their heads from Departments and Secretaries to Ministries and Ministers, and moved the country into the Greenwich Meridian Time Zone. He reduced the power and influence of the Masonic Order, replaced the tail coats and top hats with a more African dress code, and spoke Kpelle on national radio. He eliminated lavish spending on parades and celebrations, instituted self-sufficiency programs with an emphasis on education, and demanded more accountability from Cabinet Ministers. But he lacked Tubman's charismatic ability to unify the country, and underneath Monrovia's tranquil surface, trouble was brewing.

And so the Seventies began, with a mixture of uncertainty and optimism, despair and hope, a sense of entitlement in some quarters, one of exclusion in others.

Saturday mornings at the Y, acolyte practice in the afternoon, Calabre's Ice Cream afterwards, corn bread and liver gravy on Sunday morning, Cooper's Beach after church, cultural extravaganzas at Kendejah, and soccer games at Antoinette Tubman Stadium.

Football was the single most unifying factor in national life, as everybody shared a burning passion for the Lone Star and one or other of the four major clubs- Barolle, Invincible Eleven, St. Joseph, and Bame. Barolle and I. E. rivalry divided neighborhoods, friends, even families. We played almost as soon as we could walk, on grass, sand, dirt, and in the streets, with Adidas from Olympics, 'scobees' from Waterside, and bare feet.

In Point Four, we idolized Killers United and half-envied Clay Street Defenders, with their wizard Benrus Collins. Point Four boasted some wizards of its own, like my friends Nyenanti and Koko Wleh. For some reason, Kru neighborhoods like Point Four, Clara Town, Westpoint and especially Slipway produced some brilliant players. Not withstanding the superior attitudes of some elements of upper class and not-so-upper class society, there was a strong sense of togetherness that I fear is gone forever, like one big extended family.

The Big Apple Record and Novelty Store was on Broad Street in the heart of downtown Monrovia and we would spend whole afternoons there after school. Run by black Americans who taught martial arts at they Y, they sold records, "Marvin Gaye" and "Apple Jack" hats, T-shirts, patches, buttons, and the usual head shop paraphernalia.

But what drew us was the music.

Music was one of two things that most defined the Seventies. The other was revolution, and along with the giant posters of Angela Davis and the Panthers, the Big apple blasted Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Sly Stone, War, etc. Between periodic visits to Pop Doe on Capitol By-pass, we would hang out for hours at the Apple, sometimes when we were supposed to be in school. For those that have no idea who Pop Doe was, let's just say he had a rather powerful impact on Monrovia's social and cultural life.

The African music scene wasn't exactly sleeping either. Osibisa. Cymande. The various Highlife artists, the incomparable Fela, and locally, Morris Dolly and his Bomi Hills Boys. Then in '77, Rocafil, perhaps the most successful group in West African music, exploded onto the scene with their mega-hit, "Sweet Mother," followed by another hit every other week it seemed. When they toured Yekepa that year, I met Prince Nico Mbarga at the LAMCO radio station where I had a summer job. The brilliant musician was killed in a motorcycle accident not too long afterwards.

The Wilmot Stubblefield Experience.

Freddie D (Fred Deshield) and FM RAW (Richard Wilson).

Weekend trips to Buchanan for the Bassa High School dance.

Christmas in Yekepa. Practicing with the LNTTA (Liberian National Table Tennis Association) at the Sports Commission.

The Lane (Gurley Street red light district).

Traveling upcountry by road, with stops in Kakata, Totota, Gbarnga, Ganta, and Sanniquellie, all the senses stimulated by the exquisite vibrancy of African culture.

One afternoon in 1977, I got off the bus at Twelfth Street in Sinkor, to meet some friends at Tubman High. The largest school in the city, it was also one of the best in the country, the pride of the Monrovia Consolidated School System. I walked right into a political rally.

The students at Tubman High were very militant and MOJA, the Movement for Justice in Africa, had a strong influence there. There was a revolutionary fire sweeping Africa and we were no exception. Most kids in my age group followed with keen interest the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, the last remaining vestiges of European colonial rule. The names of Samora Machel, Amilcar Cabral, Agostino Neto, Sam Nujoma, Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe, Jerry Rawlings, and Kojo Tshikata ranked even higher in our pantheon of heroes than those of Pele, Santos Maria, and Wanibo Toe.

Earlier that day, the usual Friday assembly at my own school, the College of West Africa, featured visiting South African students, in exile since the Soweto uprising the previous year. We held a rally to raise funds for them and wrote letters of support they would take back to their comrades in Lusaka.

The Tubman High students were beating drums, waving banners, and chanting revolutionary slogans. Speaker after speaker addressed inequities in the system, openly denouncing the Tolbert government and berating "the bourgeoisie." At seventeen, I was becoming conscious of those inequities, and the fact that things I took for granted, like tuition, uniforms, books and transportation, didn't come so easily to some of these students. While Tubman High was tuition-free, related expenditures put a very heavy burden on families that could barely afford to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Quite a contrast to some of my classmates at CWA who took yearly shopping trips to the United States.

I saw these inequities as the universal economic rape of the poor by the rich. On this my friends at TH were in agreement, except on the extent to which ethnicity played a part. I thought the comparisons to apartheid were a bit of a stretch. "Third World" governments basically exist to serve the interests of the world's economic powers, not their own people. Development and democracy in countries viewed chiefly as sources of cheap raw materials and cheap labor are a threat to the international economic order. From this perspective it can be understood why Liberian governments in over a century failed to mount a sustained, comprehensive assault on illiteracy for example, an imperative for development and democracy. Some people have no problem reducing this complex web of capital outflow, fluctuating "market" prices, and foreign debt to "Americo-Liberian hegemony."

So why has no African government been able to surmount these overwhelming obstacles that afflict even the relative success stories like Gabon, Botswana, Kenya, and the Ivory Coast?

Certainly pre-1980 governments were guilty of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and shameful neglect. But what did their ethnicity have to do with it? Who benefited from their economic and political monopoly? They, their families, business associates, and foreign economic powers. Who were the victims of their disgraceful neglect?

Everyone who wasn't rich and connected, regardless of ethnicity. For instance, in the absence of adequate emergency response services, a stroke victim would die because there was no ambulance to get her to the hospital within the sixty minute window for survival, no matter what her name was or where her parents came from. Autocratic rule, corruption, mismanagement and neglect are not unique to "Americo-Liberians" or any other ethnic group. In fact, they are all very African!

Family names like Sayeh, Sayon, Sirleaf, Nagbe, Fahnbulleh, Dukuly, Keita, Boayue, Kemokai, Kandakai, Youh, Farngaloe, Dunso, Wreh, Doe, Kiaadi, Kromah, Kamara, Tamba, and Bility were as prominent and respected as Dennis, Cooper, Deshield or Morgan. In which category would we place Dr. Bernard Blamo, J. Gbaflen Davis, General Binyan Kesselly, or Paramount Chief Johnny Voker? The oppressor, or the oppressed?

Major institutional pillars of society were headed by Liberians of tribal background, like the United Methodist Church, (S. Trowen Nagbe), the Episcopal Church (George D. Browne) the Armed Forces of Liberia (Chief of Staff Henry Korboi Johnson) and other sensitive institutions from which they would have been barred in an apartheid system. Had it truly been an exclusionary society, the seventeen members of the PRC would not have been allowed near the Mansion, let alone membership in the elite Executive Mansion Guard, with easy access to the Presidential quarters!

My friends at TH were in the vanguard of a democratic movement made up of all ethnic groups, including the bourgeoisie. The editor of the revelation, an LU-based magazine very vocal in its calls for reform and criticism of the Tolbert government, was a member of the Weeks family. In the sixties, Byron Coleman incurred the wrath of President Tubman for organizing unskilled workers and advocating their rights. And who can forget the legendary Albert Porte? I thought that one thing that could stop this progressive movement or sabotage its aims, was the very African tendency to tribalize everything.

One morning in early 1980, the Freemans, who I lived with in Yekepa, woke me up to tell me news I never thought I'd hear. The Liberian government had been overthrown in a bloody coup by noncommissioned members of the army. I didn't believe them at first. And I wasn't alone in my disbelief. No one I know ever thought it would happen. Coups took place in Ghana and Nigeria, not Liberia!

In retrospect though, why not? The same conditions that precipitated military takeovers in neighboring countries existed at home. The same glaring contradictions of opulence and squalor, immense wealth and grinding poverty, the same meddling foreign interests. I guess we had put up with the rape of our country by western powers and their Liberian servants for so long, we thought Liberians just didn't have the balls.

Had we taken the time to research our history, we would have wondered why it didn't happen sooner.

And the answer is simple. American protection.

Tubman's unbroken rule of twenty-seven years was not simply due to his benevolent patronage, his security network, and his enormous popularity. His rabid anti-communism, neocolonialist orientation and repressive policies served America's interests well and he was rewarded with the foreign aid needed to sustain his welfare programs and contain inflation. During his reign and that of Samuel Doe, American aid was at its highest levels. Tolbert, the Pan-African democratic reformer, was not so fortunate. Coincidence? I think not.

Perhaps in about thirty years we'll have access, under the Freedom of Information Act, to classified CIA documents concerning Liberia in the cold war. At the very least the coup could not have happened without their knowledge and consent, with the U. S. Military Mission and extensive CIA operations in the country.

Why does it matter whose idea the coup was, some may argue, when it broke the long hegemony over the country of a small clique of wealthy, greedy aristocrats? Some will even argue that it was a popular uprising of the tribal people against the century-long domination of the "Americo-Liberians."

They would be partly right, on both counts. At least that's how it appeared at the time it happened. In actuality, the coup was simply a preemptive strike by Washington D. C. to protect their "strategic interests" from a democratic movement they knew Tolbert did not have the will to suppress.

Despite the role of liberal philanthropists and President James Monroe in Liberia's founding, the Americans never much cared for the settlers, ever since they had the gall to declare a black African republic in 1847, in a bold challenge to white supremacy. Note the fact that the country was largely ignored from its inception up until World War II, when the U. S. and their allies needed landing and refueling rights, air bases, raw materials, and other support for their North African campaign. That's when American investment started to pour into the country, reinforcing the false notion of a big brother in Washington, when in reality the Americans couldn't stand "those uppity Negroes in Monrovia."

The racist mindset still pervading Washington's halls of power would not rest until the settlers, and by extension African-Americans, had yet again been cut down to size. President Tolbert's nonalignment stance and political reforms were their motivation to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone-teach the uppity Negroes a lesson and protect American interests. It must be noted that when Tolbert's Harvard-educated Foreign Minister, Cecil Dennis sought asylum at the US Embassy, he was turned away by people he thought were his friends. It's not just the Arabs who hate America's destructive foreign policies. They just have what the rest of the "Third World" lacks-the balls to resist!

That the real revolution, the movement spearheaded by MOJA and the PPP, had been pre-empted by the coup was not immediately apparent, not even to the revolutionaries in the PRC who didn't yet realize they had carried out the dirty work of forces beyond Liberian politics, nor to the erstwhile opposition leaders, who were invited to join the new government.

Why people supposedly committed to constitutional democracy would agree to participate in a military government is a question only they can answer. That they didn't demand immediate emergency elections and a return to the barracks certainly leads one to question their motives for political agitation in the first place.

Of course we can't judge them without being in their place, facing an army in no mood for challenges to its authority. A showdown with the PRC at that time would have almost certainly led to a bloodbath. But in light of the fact that a bloodbath was what we ended up with anyway, one would wish they had at least tried. A showdown would have forced Washington to come down firmly on the side of democracy. A coalition government of MOJA, PPP and True Whig Party progressives would have saved Liberia.

The subsequent execution of Tolbert's entire cabinet, which horrified the world, was a clear signal that the PRC had no intention of restoring civilians democratic rule. The systematic purging of true revolutionaries in the PRC government, most notably Quiwonkpah and Fahnbulleh, made it even clearer that the coup had absolutely nothing to do with revolution.

And people still believed, as the racist western media would have them, that this was a tribal uprising against the oppressive "Americo-Liberians." To this day, many Liberians still don't understand what really went down in their country, as phrases like "Americo-Liberian hegemony" and "the Americo-Liberian oligarchy" are overused, even by the most objective writers on the web.

Colonial era war crimes and abuse of power by officials in the rural areas are often cited, without the context in which they occurred. The infamous Fernando Po episode is a case in point.

What is never mentioned is that the people of Monrovia took to the streets in outrage when the news broke, forced the League of Nations inquiry, and ultimately brought down the government of Charles D. B. King. It was his administration, not the settler people, that was guilty of that crime against humanity. And what about the role of the tribal chiefs, who had more direct control over their people under the colonial arrangement then existing? Were any chiefs sold into forced labor? Any of their families? I don't think so! It's like blaming the Europeans for the transatlantic slave trade while forgetting the role Africans played in it.

Because of the obvious profound implications for African and African-American history, it's important that our entire story be told, not just the failures and shortcomings but the triumphs and successes as well. Anything less is a disservice to Liberians born after 1980, and to generations yet unborn. As Bob Marley said in his classic BABYLON SYSTEM, "tell the children the truth!"

I suspect the people on the ground at home are not affected by the "we and them" divisions highlighted by some web writers on this side of the Atlantic, whose obsession with ethnicity and personalities betray an obvious political motivation.

Resentment of injustice is perfectly understandable. Most people place those historical injustices in context and move on. Others choose to carry their resentment to the grave. It's their choice. We can blame one ethnic group or another for the destruction of our country until Judgment Day. But the real revolution won't come until we finally realize who the enemy is-ourselves.

In light of all that has happened since, the mass slaughter, tribal bloodletting, rape epidemic, the disruption of the rural agronomy, and the near total destruction of over a hundred years of steady progress, most reasonable people will conclude that the coup should not have happened. For those who insist it was necessary, I think the ancestors disagree, as the horrors that have befallen our country would indicate.

October 9, 1980

I sat on the steps of the Pioneers Monument outside the Ducor, the highest point in the city. I was leaving the next day for the United States. The statue of first president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, towered over me as I contemplated the future of my homeland and my own future, which I thought were inextricably linked. What would happen next? Would I ever see this city again? What would it be like?

I looked up into the face of J. J. Roberts. His impassive expression told me I would just have to wait and find out for myself.

Writer's Note:

Dedicated to: J. C. Mai and Catherine Liles, Nigba Doe, Africa Deah, Richard A. Wilson, Edsel Holder, Yea Daniels, Divine Quist, Mcmillian Freeman, Lafayette Jenkins, Jennie Hansford.

The 200,000+ killed, maimed, orphaned, and displaced in West Africa's most horrifying conflict.

The members of JAMBO YOUTH CLUB (Sinkor, '75-'77). Thanks for the memories:

Kula Sirleaf, Zack Major, John Stewart, Eugenia Koffa, Steven Koffa, Rose Mensah, Yuku Stewart, Florence Joe, Arnold Maloney, Chris Rennie, Oretha Marshall, Amelia Campbell, Francis Campbell, Rose Benson, Yvonne Richardson, Jackie Voker. If I forgot anyone, please forgive me.

And may Almighty God, the real and actual Founder of our nation, hear the incessant prayers of thousands, restore our sanity, and heal our beloved homeland.

Peace.