The Journey From Refugee to National Cultural Treasure

Members of Vow 2 Praise, a popular Liberian vocal ensemble.

MONROVIA, Liberia

The story of their all-male singing ensemble dates back some 15 years, to the days when they were teenagers living in the squalor of an overcrowded refugee camp in Guinea that housed tens of thousands of Liberians during the country’s long civil conflict. But in the years that followed, the singing group Vow 2 Praise rose to heights they never fathomed, ultimately singing for presidents and being voted in one Nigerian competition as the best gospel group.
The nine members of Vow 2 Praise come from five different groups among the wide array of ethnic tribes in Liberia. They sing with a tightness of harmony and precision in rhythm that is utterly spellbinding. They interact with one another with a closeness that makes them seem more like siblings than choral colleagues. And in delivering their rapturously sonorous songs, they seek to offer an even more essential message to Liberia and to the world.
“Our main intent is to show that there can be unity in Liberia,” said Clarence N. Cooper, a tenor who is also the spokesman for the group. “We want to preach the message of oneness. We want people, especially young people, to know that they, too, have God-giving talents that need to be discovered and used to make a contribution to society.”

The group specializes in acappella religious music, with much of their repertoire being traditional Liberian selections in the country’s indigenous languages. They also sing traditional American-style gospel songs, with those being in English. They have sung at venues raging from festivals in Monrovia to gospel concerts in Nigeria, increasingly being lauded as examples of the finest of Liberia’s cultural resources.

“They represent some of the very best in Liberian music and I think their music needs to be discovered and appreciated by a far wider audience outside of the country,” said Samson T. Tarpeh, the executive director of the Agape National Academy of Music in Monrovia. “They are doing music that reflects the beauty of what we have in this country.”

Yet, theirs is also a story steeped in the pain of Liberia’s brutal civil war, a conflict that left more than 250,000 Liberians killed. For years, thousands of displaced Liberians sought refuge in neighboring countries, from the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone and Guinea. Housing conditions were often deplorable and living conditions were often unsanitary. Schools were scarce. Food was rationed with people standing in line for hours for a meal.
On one afternoon in 1995, Saykeh Glay, the man who would one day become the group’s leader, stood in line for a meal at a camp in Jeake, in Guinea. “He felt so dehumanized that he wanted to sing a song that would revive the soul,” Mr. Cooper said. “And when he started singing, something got a hold of us, we. One guy started joining in, singing tenor. Another came in and started singing bass. It drew a lot of people to us. They were people who had lost their families, people who were brokenhearted. When we got done singing, they told us they wanted more. That’s how we started.”
The conditions in the camp, Mr. Cooper recalled, were “so completely terrible,” adding, “there were so many sicknesses and diseases there. There were rations for food, no schools to speak of. We were just there because we needed shelter, just living by the grace of God.”

While in Guinea, the group started singing not just in the camp but also at outside churches, schools and in other refugee communities. They came back to Liberia and continued to sing together. Within a few years, they looked for other singing opportunities and moved to Nigeria, where they started to gain a following. It was there that the group became well known in the circles of gospel music. They won various competitions and were asked to sing at everything from churches to presidential events.

But after four years in Nigeria, the founder of the group became ill and another became got sick and died. “After he died, our parents, who were all in Liberia, wanted us back home. Also, we were not in school when we were living in Nigeria.
Since they returned to Liberia in 2004, many of the group’s members got scholarships and financial assistance to go to college. In the last few years, two members of the group received college degrees and another five are on target to graduate next year. Over the same period, the group formed a foundation to raise funds for tuition, fees, uniforms and books for elementary and secondary school students.

“We want to tell the young people, especially the teenagers who feel that things are not working out well for them, that there is something within them that they can tap into,” Mr. Cooper said. “God has embedded in them qualities that will allow them to be a blessing to the world.”

Beyond that, Mr. Cooper and others in the group insist, they symbolize what the Liberia of the future might be, when people from the various ethnic tribes focus more on their commonality than on their differences.

“We are from a lot of different groups,” he said. “We are Bassa, Grebo, Kpelle, Kru and Mano. But we are brothers. We sometimes we argue. But we argue like brothers. More than anything, we love each other as brothers. Our message, I think, is that this is how Liberia should be.”

By Jonathan P. Hicks

From the Football Field to the Atlantic’s Beaches, One Man’s Effort To Ignite Liberia’s Fledgling Hospitality and Tourism Industry

Musa Shannon, chief executive of Nana’s Beach Resort.

MONROVIA, Liberia

Just a few years ago, he was a Liberian football sensation, immersed in a dizzying career that had him crisscrossing the world, from the United States and Portugal to China and his native Liberia.

And while he has kept his ties to football, Musa Shannon has moved firmly into a field that never occurred to him, yet it is a calling he has passionately embraced. He is now the premier leader in the hospitality industry in Liberia’s most trendy destination: Robertsport, in Grand Cape Mount County.

Nana’s Lodge.

He is the owner and chief executive of Nana’s Beach Resort, a collection of highly stylized tents perched along the beachside of one of West Africa’s most up-and-coming tourism destinations. Robertsport is a town in western Liberia, roughly 10 miles from the border of Sierra Leone that has become increasingly well known for its pristine beaches and some of the best surfing conditions in all of Africa.

It is into this terrain – of rolling green hills and shores where fisherman bring in the daily catch of barracuda, grouper and lobster – that Mr. Shannon has resolutely planted himself and his dreams. In doing so, he is betting his all on a Liberia of the future that, after years of war and civil strife, he hopes will see the country’s resort and tourism industry grow into one with worldwide appeal.

“I think Robertsport is one of the things about Liberia that our people should take pride in,” Mr. Shannon said. “I don’t think Liberians ever looked at our country as a tourism destination. We tend to think of Jamaica, Aruba, and other places in the Caribbean. But we have one of the great places for tourism right here in Liberia. And, here, we’re starting to see the emergence of the tourism industry in Liberia.”

It would seem like a decidedly safe bet. Robertsport is nothing if not stunning. The sleepy, quiet community is set along a peninsula overlooked by a stunning mountain of forests, just adjacent to Lake Piso, the spectacular body of water that is Liberia’s largest lake. But developing a tourism industry has been a challenge for a country whose international image for so long was characterized by civil strife rather than brilliant beaches.

Nonetheless, the Cape Mount and Robertsport area has long been considered a Liberian treasure. In the 1970s, there was the Hotel Victoria, standing proudly with its wondrous views and renowned food, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. But the hotel, like so much of the country, was destroyed during the civil war that ravaged Liberia for 14 years until it ended in 2003. The hotel stands today as a dilapidated reminder of grandeur gone by.

But since then, the highway leading to Robertsport from Monrovia has been refurbished, with only a stretch of about a third of the journey in need of repaving. The volume of tourists has improved, if not to a stampede, at least to a steady and increasing stream. The word of the waves has spread, first creating an underground buzz in the international surfing community and, lately, in everything from travel magazines to the pages of The New York Times.

The beach at Robertsport.

Three years ago, Mr. Shannon decided to play a role in making the area a prime destination. He grew up in the Paynesville section of Monrovia, near the Samuel K. Doe Stadium. Ultimately, his parents moved from Liberia to the United States and he learned to develop his skill in a game he knew as football in a country that called it soccer. He went to Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh and graduated with a degree in business management. He considered staying in Pittsburgh to get his MBA, but was drafted in 1997 by the Tampa Bay Mutiny, a professional soccer club.

He went on to play in Europe – in Portugal. By 2000, he was back in Liberia, playing on the Liberian National Team (he was a teammate of George Weah, the football star and future presidential candidate). It was a few years later, in 2003, he went to play for the Colorado Rapids and within a year he was playing with a team in Dong Guan, China, that Mr. Shannon decided it was time to come home.

“I knew that playing for that team in China meant that my career was winding down,” he said. “I had a great time in China. I went back to the New York area and had a couple officers to do coaching. But I started questioning where I wanted to be in four or five years. I came back to Liberia in 2006. And I knew from the time I landed, that it was time for me to stay here.”
His family owned land in Cape Mount and Mr. Shannon settled himself on an acre and a half of it along the gentle slope along the sea. He put up a dozen or so tents perched on stilts, offering breathtaking views of the ocean. He named it Nana’s Lodge, after his late grandmother who hailed from the Cape Mount area. Soon after, he opened a beachside restaurant offering locally grown or obtained items. There is, for example, grilled chicken and grilled fish with local favorites like jollof rice served at tables adorned with bight beach umbrellas.

He still is immersed in football, serving as Vice President of administration for the Liberian Football Association. However, his passion is clearly in his fledgling resort along the ocean. He wants to add cabins and enhance the nightly entertainment offered in the beachside restaurant. He sees his enterprise as a source of economic empowerment for the farmers and market women of the Cape Mount area.

“I’m trying to show people innovative and unconventional ways of making money here, locally,” Mr. Shannon said. “Tourism is a way of doing that. I think people in Robertsport are starting to see the economic impact. We’re buying everything locally: fish, chicken and food from the local market. We’re getting baked goods from the people right in Robertsport. We’re already changing the local economy.”

He talks of a strong desire to do even more. “I want people to take notice of what we have in Robertsport. I think Liberians are starting to notice. I want people here to know that you don’t have to go to Ghana or Senegal to have a good time. I want people to know that we have wonderful places right here in Liberia. “

By Jonathan P. Hicks

Women Should Play Greater Role in Political Coverage and Not Treated Like Second-Class Professionals, Panel of Journalist Leaders Contend

Left to right: Ora Garway, editor of Punch newspaper; Torwon Sulonteh-Brown, Acting President of the Female Journalists of Liberia (FEJAL), and Naomi Seydee, director of news for Liberia Womens Democratic Radio.

Women are dramatically underrepresented in the world of journalism in Liberia and the number who are playing a role in the political coverage of the country’s upcoming presidential election is even more dismal, according to three women who are leaders in the profession in the West African nation.

The three women spoke Thursday at a symposium on political and election reporting at the University of Liberia.

What’s more, the three journalists contended, women in their profession in Liberia remain second-class professionals and the continued victims of sexual harassment, intimidation and bribery attempts. And coverage of women in politics is often presented in derogatory portrayals, they said.

“The underreporting or negative coverage given to political women and their presentation in stereotypical or powerless roles provides clear messages to voters that women just don’t belong in this political world,” said Torwon Sulonteh-Brown, the acting president of the Female Journalists of Liberia (FEJAL). “That has to change.”

She added: “Sexual harassment is also a challenge during the election period.” Furthermore, she said, “Some of the aspiring candidates wanting the journalists to report in their favor try to seduce them. And others try to bribe their way through. And it takes a woman of integrity to refuse a bribe.”

Ms. Sulonteh-Brown was part of a panel that included Ora Garway, the editor of Punch newspaper, and Naomi Seydee, director of news for Liberia Women’s Democratic Radio. They made their remarks at a session in the conference, which is called “Preparing for Election 2011: A Symposium on Political and Election Reporting.” The Ford Foundation, the University of Liberia, the Press Union of Liberia, the Liberia Media Center and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College in New York are sponsoring the symposium.

The symposium is being coordinated by Jonathan P. Hicks, a journalist and writer who is a senior fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy. Mr. Hicks is a former financial and political reporter with The New York Times and the host of a radio program in New York. The two-week symposium, which is taking place at the University of Liberia, has brought together professional print and broadcast journalists along with mass communication students at the University of Liberia to discuss a number of topics related to coverage of Liberia’s 2011 presidential election.

The three women were part of a session. “Women as Journalists and Subjects in Political Coverage.”

Ms. Garway, who is the only woman editor of a newspaper in Monrovia, the country’s capital, said that the problem affect women in journalism in Liberia is deeply entrenched.

“The longtime bias and stereotype against female journalists in Liberia has created a psyche of complacency and laissez-faire among women, as testified by the fact that there are no female editors in Liberian newsrooms, except for a smarm of female reporters and newscasters,”

The three argued strongly for training and mentoring programs directed at women, particularly in the field of political reporting, which is considered the plum assignment in Liberia’s nearly 20 daily newspapers.

In the months leading up to the 2011 presidential election, the speakers said, that political coverage must be sensitive, fair and balanced, particularly against the backdrop of the 14-year civil war that ended in 2003.

“Politics is conflict,” Ms. Garway said. “And good journalism must keep it unexplosive. This means political reporting must tell the entire story and not leave it abridged. Women, most of whom come to the profession with the natural gender sensitivity, are most suited to tell the full story.”

Liberian Opposition Candidate Calls for Fairness in Election Coverage

More Transparency in Monitoring Count in 2011 Presidential Race

Charles Brumskine

Charles Brumskine, the leader of Liberia’s opposition Liberty Party, gave an impassioned plea Wednesday for the nation’s press to practice fair and balanced reporting in next year’s presidential election while calling on the media to do a better job of providing equal time to coverage of candidates.

Mr. Brumskine also called on the National Elections Commission to provide greater transparency in releasing information on results as they come in at the local level, by polling station, a move he said that would enhance confidence in the system. He also said that the members of the commission should be selected by the president, but with input from Liberia’s various political parties, rather than being selected exclusively by the president.

“Although there is no legal requirement in Liberia for an equal-time rule, there should be a fairness consideration for such a practice in Liberia,” Mr. Brumkine said, explaining that media should ensure that air time and newspaper coverage offer as much balance of the various presidential candidates as possible.

Mr. Brumskine is one of several candidates planning to challenge Liberia’s incumbent president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in next year’s race. Indeed, Mr. Brumskine has been the most visible of the opposition candidates, in large measure because of his talks in recent months to form an alliance with George Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change Party. Both men were candidates for president in 2005.

“Reporting the results of the elections at each polling station is an example of a right that the press needs to demand,” Mr. Brumskine said. “It would clearly be in the best interest of the Liberian People, the National Elections Commission and the administration.”

Mr. Brumskine was the speaker at a journalism conference, which is called “Preparing for Election 2011: A Symposium on Political and Election Reporting.” The Ford Foundation, the University of Liberia, the Press Union of Liberia, the Liberia Media Center and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College in New York are sponsoring the symposium. The Wednesday session was at the Monrovia YMCA.

The symposium is being coordinated by Jonathan P. Hicks, a journalist and writer who is a senior fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy. Mr. Hicks is a former financial and political reporter with The New York Times and the host of a radio program in New York. The two-week symposium, which is anchored at the University of Liberia, ends Thursday. It has brought together professional print and broadcast journalists along with mass communication students at the University of Liberia to discuss a number of topics related to coverage of Liberia’s 2011 presidential election.

Mr. Brumskine was most ardent in his charge to the media to offer balanced and fair coverage in the months leading up to Liberia’s presidential election next fall. He said that, with the country’s recent history of violent civil conflict, balanced and responsible press coverage of what could be a highly emotional political season would help produce a smooth and safe campaign season in Liberia.

“For Liberia, the prospect of democracy taking root finds itself at a critical crossroads,” Mr. Brumskine said. “The way things go in the next 12 months will be recorded in the history books for either setting Liberia on the course of true democracy or whether it will return the country to the kind of situation that created civil war.”

He said that tone and balance of political coverage in the coming year “will determine the Liberia that we give to our children and our children’s children.” He added, “The burden on your shoulders is not light.”

“If over the next year the Liberian people are given free information about the Sirleaf government, the National Elections Commission, and help to ensure a free fair and transparent election, then real and sustainable democracy will take hold in our country. But such will not be obtained without the members of the press.”

When asked whether the president should select the chairman of the National Elections Commission and its members, Mr. Brumskine said that they should be appointed by the president, but that the selection should be made from a pool of names supplied by each of the major political parties, including the Unity Party of which President Sirleaf is the standard bearer.

For Liberia’s Other “Iron Lady,” Kudos, Criticism — and Mostly Respect

Mary Broh, the Mayor of Monrovia

MONROVIA, Liberia

Monrovia's City Hall

In the course of offering a tour of City Hall to a guest, Mary T. Broh, the mayor of Monrovia, emerged from her office and encountered an information desk that had no one sitting behind it.

“Why is no one behind that desk?” she shouted to a group of aides accompanying her on the tour. Before anyone could answer, the mayor continued, her voice growing ever sterner: “What are we telling people when they come in here and no one is sitting behind this desk? How does this look? Take care of this right away.” With that, the aides scurried to correct the problem, without uttering a word.

It was vintage Mary Broh, the mayor that Liberians have come to know and, well, respect. In little more than a year at the helm of the country’s largest city, Ms. Broh has developed a reputation as a tireless worker committed to scrubbing Monrovia to a point of cleanliness the city has not known since before Liberia’s punishing civil war. She is widely described as a blunt-talking, no-holds-barred administrator who can dish out a barb or a profanity as swiftly as it’s brandished on her.

“And they are right,” Ms. Broh said, when asked if the characterizations hold true. “I have adopted a very unorthodox approach,” she added. “But that’s the way to get the message out. I’m not brutal. I just want people to know that I’m trying to develop Monrovia into a clean, sanitary city. I let people know that if you don’t clean your place, I will fine you. If you keep doing it, I will make sure you go the City Court and you can spend time going through the court system. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I’m Mary Broh – unscripted.”

And while she has rankled some critics who find her style off-putting, she has legions of supporters who describe her as a tough-as-nails administrator at the right time in a tough city. She is credited for having led a highly successful cleanup campaign, enlisting hundreds of workers to help remove debris and trash from Monrovia’s streets. New sidewalks are being built in Monrovia’s downtown, specifically on the historic heart of the city’s downtown, along Broad Street. Meanwhile, Ms. Broh is now undertaking a massive effort to clean Monrovia’s beaches and to develop a pilot program under which portable toilets will soon be introduced.

What’s more, she is being hailed for her urban renewal initiatives that involve the demolition of dilapidated and old buildings, many of them abandoned after Liberia’s 14-year civil war ended in 2003. That has angered many of Liberians who came to Monrovia after the war seeking greater economic opportunity. Many criticize her as being tone deaf to the pain of the poor who are merely seeking a better life.

But Ms. Broh counters by saying that people simply cannot plant their roots wherever they please in Monrovia, irrespective of zoning laws. “We have to have a city of laws that have to be recognized and enforced. And we have to clean our city, all of us, including me.”

She started with City Hall itself, refurbishing some sections of the half-century-old building with new furniture, dusting off and redoing the building’s cavernous theater and polishing it’s large, public hall to a point where is has become a favorite place in Monrovia for everything from state dinners to wedding receptions. She also admits plainly that “the days of workers coming to work at City Hall at 11 and leaving at 3 are over.” She said that if workers are to receive a full days’ pay, “They’d better do a full day’s work.” She herself said that she works long hours, getting into her office near daybreak and continuing into the evening. “I’m not married,” she said. “My one daughter is grown and I’m free as a bird to do work as hard as I like.”

Her work as mayor has clearly won her a number of fans.

“Watching Mary Broh has led me to have faith that things can get done in Liberia,” said Hesta Baker Pearson, chief executive of Baker Pearson Communications, a publishing company in Monrovia. “City Hall itself has been transformed. She gets in the streets herself and helps to do the cleaning. She has managed to do some things that many people thought were impossible. If Liberia had 20 more Mary Brohs, the country would be massively transformed in about one year’s time.”

Sometimes, her methods display an utter lack of subtlety. On one occasion, with bulldozer in tow, Ms. Broh took to the streets of Monrovia, demolishing illegally built structures, saying they were a haven for criminals and prostitutes.

Ms. Broh, came to government work in Liberia almost by chance. She left the country decades ago and lived in New York City for more than 30 years, working as a collections manager for a Manhattan garment manufacturing company and, later, as shipping and logistics manager for Marvel, the toy company. All the while, she had followed the career of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, she said, and met the future president on a chance encounter on an intersection near the United Nations.

“She gave me her phone number and I started staying in touch with her,” Ms. Broh said. “I never abandoned her. I felt this lady was bound to be great. Every time she was in New York, and even when she was in exile in the Ivory Coast, I was in touch with her. We became friends.”

When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was inaugurated as the first woman head of state in all of Africa in 2006, Ms. Broh came from New York for the event. “I had no intention to stay here,” she said. “And the president said that she wanted me to stay and work with her. I nearly fell over,” she said, referring to the woman commonly known as Liberia’s Iron Lady. “And when your friend, the president, asks you to come, you come.”

She came indeed, first serving as special projects coordinator for the president. She went on to become the director of the Passport Bureau and was lauded by the president for working to eliminate corruption and bribery. By 2008, she had become Deputy Director of Liberia’s Port Authority and a year later, the president selected to serve as Monrovia’s mayor.

She said, she has no particular career aspirations other than to assist Liberia thrive in the transition from the aching years of war.

“I just want to be part of nation building,” she said. “Even if the President tells me to leave the city and go to the hinterland to work, I’ll be happy to go, It’s all part of nation building in this post war period. I just want my name to be remembered 50 years from now and for people to say that I helped.”

By Jonathan P. Hicks

A National Holiday That Has Remained Intact, With Caveats

Liberians taking to the beach on Tubman's Birthday.

MONROVIA, LIBERIA

There are few people anywhere in the world who don’t enjoy the prospect of a three-day weekend. And Liberians are certainly no different. While Americans celebrated Thanksgiving and immersed themselves in a frenzy of pre-Christmas shopping, preparations for another holiday tradition were unfolding on the other side of the Atlantic: Tubman’s Birthday.

President William V.S. Tubman

Each year on November 29, Liberians celebrate the birthday of William V.S. Tubman, the man who served as president of the country from 1944 until his death in 1971 – an incumbency longer than any other Liberian President. Mr. Tubman was widely viewed as the father of modern Liberia and he has been celebrated for his policies of national unity aimed at diminishing tension between the indigenous Liberians and the descendents of freed American slaves, like Mr. Tubman.
Apparently, little of that history remains uppermost in the minds of most of the celebrants of the holiday, which has instead been transformed into the day that Liberians take to the beach en masse to picnic, barbecue, relax and partake in all manner of revelry. After the months of the West African rainy season, Tubman’s Birthday falls squarely in the early weeks of the cherished dry season. In fact, Liberians seem to have developed a similar relationship with Tubman’s Birthday that Americans have established with Memorial Day. It signals the unofficial beginning of the “summer” season here, when the weather makes it far less likely that beach events will be disrupted by rain.

“For us, it’s a great beach day,” said the Rev. Joseph Johnson III, the pastor of Restoration Baptist Ministries, a church of about 300 members who gathered at the ELWA area beach in the Paynesville section of Monrovia. They ate fried fish, rice and pepper sauce — a Liberian staple. Many of the young men played soccer on the beach, while women strolled and talked leaving the children to play with one another. “The entire church is together at the beach,” Rev. Johnson said. “We’ve chartered buses so that the whole church could participate. And we’re having a wonderful, relaxing, family day on the beach. That’s what the holiday is all about.”

His congregation members are not the only ones following that trend. Liberians headed to the beaches by the tens of thousands, many of them young and most of them staying into the night.

“It’s a holiday that Liberians celebrate even more than Christmas or New Year’s,” said Jacqueline M. Capehart, the assistant minister of culture in Liberia’s Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism. “You find more people in the streets, more people enjoying social gatherings of all sorts and more traffic. It’s celebrated with a lot of zeal and enthusiasm.”
It was not always so. Liberia’s legislature made Tubman’s Birthday a holiday during his lifetime, partly as recognition of his fence-mending initiatives between the 16 indigenous tribal groups here and the descendents of the African American slaves who made up the ruling class of the country. Tubman himself celebrated his birthday by traveling to festivities far from the capital of Monrovia (he was born in Harper, a city in the southeastern tip of the country). Those visits, older Liberians contend, helped to bring attention — and resources — to rural areas and smaller cities. In Monrovia and throughout the country, there were also parades and public events marking the holiday with bands playing and schoolchildren marching.
However, in the years since President Tubman died, Liberia has been through a bloody coup and years of painful, civil conflict that left hundreds of thousands of its citizens dead. And the celebration of Tubman’s Birthday took a back seat to the challenges of human survival. After Liberia’s 14 years of devastating civil war ended in 2003, Tubman’s Birthday remained intact as a national holiday, but with a distinctly different character.

In recent years, there has been debate in some of the country’s circles about whether Tubman’s Birthday should be a holiday at all. While he is lauded by many for policies that brought an influx of foreign investment and modernization into Liberia, the late president is also criticized by many Liberians for what they consider a dictatorial style of governing, particularly in the later years of his presidency. Others, still, suggest that it would better to celebrate collectively all those who have served as president of Liberia since Joseph Jenkins Roberts was inaugurated in 1848.
But Tubman’s Birthday has survived, although somehow over the years, his legacy was less in focus than the various forms of celebration of the holiday that bears the Tubman name. This year, young people flocked to the beaches in a force so strong that extra police offers were put on duty to move traffic along and to look for evidence of drivers who had been drinking.
Many Liberians lament the fact that Tubman’s Birthday has developed something of a distasteful underside, with growing complaints of lewd behavior and drunkenness on the beaches with fights often ensuing. Nonetheless, there are legions of Liberians who, like Rev. Johnson, describe the day as one that offers a more-than-welcome tonic to the struggles of Liberia’s daily grind. It is a day, he said, where families spend time together and where people can simply have a good time.

“We need a day to relax and to be with our families,” he said. “We need a chance to simply enjoy the wonderful beaches that God has given to Liberia. It’s a wonderful holiday.”

By Jonathan P. Hicks

Liberia’s Information Minister Calls for Balance, Integrity

As Media Begin Covering the 2011 Presidential Race

Norris Tweah, Liberia's Minister of Information

Liberia’s acting minister of information made an impassioned appeal on Monday for journalists to practice the highest ethical standards in the political coverage leading up to next year’s president election, saying that responsible press coverage will help establish the country’s media as an inspiration for the rest of West Africa.

Speaking at a symposium on political and election reporting at the University of Liberia, Norris Tweah, the acting minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, said, “The world’s attention will be on Liberia as we go toward next year’s election.” He added, “Successful coverage will elevate the media sector of Liberia to another, important pedestal.”

Mr. Tweah made his remarks on the opening of “Preparing for Election 2011,” a symposium on political and election reporting. The Ford Foundation, the University of Liberia, the Press Union of Liberia, the Liberia Media Center and the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College in New York are sponsoring the symposium.

The symposium is being coordinated by Jonathan P. Hicks, a journalist and writer who is a senior fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College. Mr. Hicks is a former financial and political reporter with The New York Times and the host of a radio program, Urban Focus, at Medgar Evers. The two-week symposium, which is taking place at the University of Liberia, brings together professional print and broadcast journalists along with mass communication students at the University of Liberia to discuss a number of topics related to coverage of Liberia’s 2011 presidential election.

Emmet Dennis, President of the University of Liberia

Emmet Dennis, the president of the University of Liberia, also spoke at the opening of the symposium. Dr. Dennis pointed out that Liberia is emerging from the horrors of 14 years of civil war and that the country’s continued reemergence would be well served by peaceful presidential elections that included balanced and responsible media coverage.

“The critical challenge for the media is that they stay faithful to their duty to the public, to give the right, balanced information that will help the public make informed decisions,” Dr. Dennis said. “In the long term the survival of the country will depend on the integrity of the media. After all, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

In an interview after the symposium, Mr. Tweah said that the important message for the media is that “they have a duty to provide right, balanced and accurate information for public consumption and decision making.” He added that the risk of not doing so “would be that it would increase the Liberia’s likelihood of failing to consolidate our democracy.”

Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is running for reelection in the 2011 campaign. And even nearly a year before the election, the campaign is already the central topic of discussion on the streets of Monrovia and throughout the country. The election has already produced a number of opposition candidates. In addition, most people in Liberia, as well as much of West Africa, are looking closely to see not only how the democratic process unfolds here, but how the media cover how the first incumbent president in post-war Liberia fares in her reelection effort.

Initially, President Sirleaf was to have addressed the symposium. But her office said she has been deeply immersed in the restructuring of her cabinet and that the information minister would stand in for her. Three weeks ago, the president asked all but one of her cabinet ministers to step down immediately while she determined which ones to keep in office.

The president told her ministers she wanted to restructure the cabinet and start with a clean slate, her office said. “This administration is entering into a critical stretch,” the president’s office said, in a statement. “And this would afford her the opportunity to start with a fresh slate going forward.”

Last week, the president started announcing not only ministers that she would be keeping in office, but also new appointees to various offices. One of those new appointees is Jonathan Reffell, a longtime Liberian broadcast journalist, whom she named as Ambassador at Large.

Mr. Reffell will be one of the speakers at the “Preparing for Election 2011” symposium on Tuesday. He will be speaking on the topic of fairness and balance in election coverage. Mr. Reffell is a former information minister and he is a consultant to Star Radio in Liberia.

Glimmers of Optimism on AIDS at International Conference

By George E. Curry

Dr. Helene Gayle remembers how disappointed she and some other delegates to the ninth International Conference on AIDS in Berlin felt as they stuffed their luggage with clothes and bulky scientific handouts before taking the long flights home, some lasting 10 hours or longer.
Earlier in 1993, U.S. tennis star Arthur Ashe and Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev had died of AIDS. The highly publicized Concorde trial had failed. At the end of the clinical trial, researchers concluded that zidovudine, better known as AZT (azidothymidine), in asymptomatic patients did not prolong the onset of HIV or lengthen the infected patient’s life.
“That was the lowest I felt leaving an AIDS conference,” said Gayle, president and chief executive officer of CARE, the international poverty-fighting organization, and former president of the International AIDS Society. She was not the only one despondent. Dr. James W. Curran, then-director of AIDS programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, told reporters that he had left Berlin “dispirited by the restless assault of the virus.”
Today, with 2.7 million new infections every year, including 56,300 - or one every 91/2 minutes - in the United States, HIV remains as restless as ever. However, delegates leaving the 18th International Conference on AIDS in Vienna this summer departed optimistic about the possibility of finding a cure for AIDS. They know that a cure may still be years away; the long journey to progress against this three-decades-long “restless assault” is measured in baby steps, not leaps and bounds.
“This is a scientific conference and there is a lot of great science being presented with fantastic results, which are giving us new hope for prevention, treatment and control of HIV,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.
By far, the most significant finding was announced by the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and involved a microbicide, which is anything that kills microbes such as bacteria and viruses.
Researchers released a study showing that a microbicide gel containing tenofovir lowered the risk of HIV infection among women by 39 percent in one group and by 54 percent among women who used the gel more frequently. Tenofovir is an antiretroviral drug that blocks a key viral protein called reverse transcriptase; HIV needs the protein to reproduce once it has entered the cell.
Nearly 900 women in the study, known as CAPRISA 004, were instructed to use the gel 12 hours preceding intercourse and again 12 hours after having sex. It was the first trial to unequivocally show that a vaginal gel blocked the transmission of HIV.
“This is breaking ground into a new area of prevention technology, which is female control methods where the woman can empower themselves and use these methodologies to protect themselves against HIV,” said Fenton of the CDC.
Even with other medical advancements in the pipeline, HIV will continue to present an enormous challenge around the world. According to UNAIDS, the United Nations’ joint program on HIV/AIDS, for every person placed in treatment in a given year, 2.5 people become infected, thus expanding the pool of people in need of treatment.
At a time when the United States and other countries have insufficient treatment slots, some nations - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and the Netherlands, among them - are reducing their contributions to fighting global AIDS.
“Reductions in investment on AIDS programs are hurting the AIDS response,” said Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS. “At a time when we are seeing results in HIV prevention and treatment, we must scale up, not scale down.”
The United States is the largest donor nation to global AIDS relief with 58 percent of the contributions. The United States increased its donations from $3.9 billion in 2008 to $4.4 billion in 2009. But it was the exception.
“Donor nations essentially were treading water last year on AIDS relief, but did not cut back overall as they dealt with the economic tsunami that sparked a global recession,” said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the organization that analyzed international funding levels. “Time will tell whether support will resume its rapid growth once the global recovery takes hold.”
In the meantime, unlike when she left the Berlin convention, Dr. Helene Gayle is upbeat.
“There are over five million people in poor countries that have access to antiretroviral therapy - that’s about a 12-fold increase in less than a decade,” she said. “I think the continued demonstration that men will go for circumcision is important. We know that circumcision can reduce transmission to men by 60 percent, so it’s incredibly effective. And there’s more evidence that putting people on treatment will also have a preventive effect. The more in treatment, the more they help prevention.”
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George E. Curry is a former Washington correspondent and New York bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune and was editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine.

Why African Americans Should Be Outraged at Arizona’s Immigration Law

Joel Dreyfuss

By Joel Dreyfuss

If you’re black and think that state’s new immigration law has nothing to do with you, think again.

A law that makes people suspects on the basis of their looks should outrage African Americans, even if they are worried about illegal immigration.

The immigration law passed in Arizona last week is the kind of reckless act that keeps us minorities paranoid in America. The new law compels local law enforcers to verify immigration status based on “reasonable suspicion”–whatever that is–and has created the potential for cops to stop brown people in the streets and demand to see their papers. Even the sheriff of Pima County, Ariz., (which borders Mexico) says the law is “stupid,” “racist,” and would force his officers to racially profile people. The scope of the law was narrowed after its passage in order to assure Hispanics, who make up 30 percent of the state’s population, that they would not be the victims of racial profiling.

But those assurances that people won’t be suspects because of the way they look have little credibility when the experience of black and brown people in America has been so contrary to those promises. Being stopped for Driving While Black (or Brown) is such a common phenomenon that comedians make jokes about it. And a city like New York, which operates a massive stop-and-frisk policy that probably violates a dozen constitutional principles, keeps trying to explain why black and brown citizens make up 80 to 90 percent of those questioned by police. The latest rationale: They fit the description of suspected perps when 98 percent of those stopped and questioned are innocent of any crime.

The reason people of color get worked up about such policies is America’s nasty habit of making everything racial in a panic. We have a long history of lynchings and runaway convictions that were triggered by fears that black people were getting out of hand in some fashion, whether it was interracial sex or talking back to massa. The roundup of Japanese Americans during World War II will forever stain this country’s history.

After 9/11, looking Arab or simply wearing a turban, whether you are Muslim or not, turned out to be a grave danger in some parts of the country and a constant annoyance in others. No Muslim American believes that the frequent “random” checks they endured at airports in the months after the tragedy were really a matter of chance. And last week, the front page of the Boston Herald illustrated a cover story about the crackdown on benefits for illegal immigrants with a photo of black, Hispanic and Asian models, their foreheads stamped with the following: “No Tuition, No Welfare, No Medicaid.” Ironically, the headline at above the newspaper’s logo announced a “workplace diversity job fair.”

Of course, the concept of white or blonde illegal aliens is apparently beyond the capacity of the people passing the laws or the editors at theHerald. But nearly 600,000 of those in the United States illegally were estimated to come from Europe or Canada in 2005; and while I knew many Irish, English and other Europeans who had overstayed their visas when I was growing up in New York, I never heard of a raid of an Irish bar, except when ATF or the FBI were trying to trap Irish Republican Army gun runners during the “troubles.”

Now Arizona, better known for resorts, retirees in golf carts, and college basketball teams whose players never graduate, is suddenly at the center of a debate that could shape U.S. politics for the next 10 years. The only surprise is that it took so long. All the great economies have been struggling with the immigration issue for years. Just last week, France was in tizzy about the burqa, the full-length outfit with only an eye-slit that conservative Muslim women wear. Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has considered banning the burqa on security grounds (you can’t identify the person), but the real reason behind this initiative, Arizona’s or any of the dozen being considered in other states or countries is fear of change.

No doubt, the Great Recession of the last three years has heightened American insecurity. Although the downturn has hit blue-collar workers the hardest, many people who thought they were solidly in the middle class have seen their savings, their safety net, even their homes evaporate in the financial collapse. The next step for many of them would be to step “down” into the blue-collar workforce. Suddenly, the Mexican, Salvadorian and African immigrants they hardly noticed during boom times are now potential competitors.

African Americans, who lost more than their fair share of blue-collar jobs in the downturn, have long been ambiguous about illegal immigration. As Cord Jefferson noted here a few months ago, a growing number of experts believe that blacks and Hispanic immigrants battle for unskilled jobs at the bottom of the labor pool. Black Americans have not turned out in large numbers at immigration rallies, despite the fact that many African-American politicians talk of the need for coalitions with Hispanics.

But a law that puts you in jeopardy for being has special resonance with black Americans. We already know the peril of living in a state where you are presumed guilty by the color of your skin. A law that makes a suspect of anyone who might look illegal should make us vigorously resist this encroachment.

Joel Dreyfuss is managing editor of The Root. He has heldeditorial positions at Fortune Magazine, PC Magazine, Black Enterprise magazine, and USA Today. He has been a writer at The Washington Post, The AP, and The New York Post, and Bloomberg, LP. This piece first appeared in TheRoot.com

How Devoted Should Obama Be To An African-American Agenda?

By Michael Fauntroy

A spat has developed among some prominent black leaders about the extent to which President Barack Obama should be pushed to give special attention to African American issues. Some believe that holding the president’s feet to the fire is not necessary (or potentially politically perilous for him) and that some of the unique issues facing black people can be addressed within the context of larger solutions.

They, in supporting their position, have erected a ridiculous straw man to under-gird their position: President Obama is not the President of black America and should not be held to that standard. This straw man that, if unchecked, will get in the way of addressing some of the crushing issues facing African Americans. For me, it’s perfectly acceptable for groups of Americans to push the government to deal with their causes, so black leaders who want to go easy on this president because he is black are failing their constituents and need to reverse course — now.

I believe this argument is a straw man because I have yet to hear one reasonable, credible person argue that Obama should be the President of Black America or solely any other segment of the nation. But that doesn’t mean that issues of particular importance to different constituencies should not be given extra attention. Special problems require special attention. Need proof? Consider what has happened with Wall Street. A massive problem — created by Wall Street’s own greed left to run amok in a deregulated environment — resulted in taxpayers convulsing more than ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to attempt to fix the problem.

The black community certainly has some responsibility for its current situation. The reality is, however, that with some black communities suffering from unemployment rates above 30 percent (In October 2009, the jobless rate for black males age 16-to-24 was 34.5 percent in my home city of Washington, D.C., a place that has made out reasonably well in the current recession and Milwaukee, Wisconsin has recently had a Black male unemployment rate hovering around 50 percent) and dangerously high dropout and criminal justice supervision rates, a unique, special, and acute problem has been established that requires attention above and beyond what our leaders — elected and appointed, and without regard to race are willing to acknowledge.

Black unemployment won’t get significantly reversed by treating it the same as white unemployment. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 10.7 percent of white men over the age of 20 were unemployed; 17.3 percent of black males were unemployed at the same time. White women over the age of 20 have an unemployment rate of 7.1 percent, while 13.3 percent of black women are jobless (this is a devastating number given the disproportionate number of single-woman headed households in the black community). Whites between the ages of 16-19 had an unemployment rate of 24.1 percent; the black unemployment rate for same aged blacks was 43.5 percent.

Groups of Americans, whether organized along ideological, religious, cultural, business, or other kinds of lines can, and do, ask the president for special attention to their issues. African Americans, however, are expected to sit in a corner and wait for the President to get around to their concerns whenever it’s convenient. I say no. Credibility requires black leaders to make sure that Congress and the White House, without regard to partisan control or the race of the leadership, that black issues are not ignored.

America should not fear a “black agenda” any more than it would fear an “environmental agenda” or an “education agenda”. As I see it, the “black agenda” is simply about making sure that some of the most acute issues facing black communities across the country are respected and acted upon. Black leaders who run from a “black agenda” to protect the “black President” need to be reassessed by those who put them in their positions.

Michael K. Fauntroy is assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University and blogs at MichaelFauntroy.com