Liberia Celebrates Its 17th President’s 127th Birth Anniversary, Today November 29 – Global News Network

Liberians and Foreign Residents are 127 today, November 29, 2022^th The anniversary of William Wakanarat Shadrach Tubman, born November 29, 1895 in Harper, Maryland County, and died July 23, 1971 in London, England), politician who served 27 years in that office as the 17th President of Liberia had the longest tenure. History of the first republic of Africa (proclaimed in 1847.

Below is his profile by Wikipedia

William Wackenarat Shadrach Tubman was a Liberian politician. He was the 19th President of Liberia and the longest-serving president in the country’s history, serving from his election in 1944 until his death in 1971.

Tubman is considered the “father of modern Liberia” because during her presidency substantial foreign investment was attracted to modernize the country’s economy and infrastructure. During his tenure, Liberia experienced a period of prosperity. He also pioneered a policy of national integration to reduce social and political differences between his fellow American-Liberians and indigenous Liberians.

Tubman family in 1917

William Tubman was born on November 29, 1895, in Harper. Tubman’s paternal grandfather, Alexander Tubman, was a stone mason, general in the Liberian Army, and former Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives, as well as a Methodist preacher. A strict disciplinarian, he required his five children to attend daily family prayer services and to sleep on the floor because he felt the beds were too soft and “degrading to character development”. Tubman’s mother, Elizabeth Rebecca (née Barnes) Tubman, was from Atlanta, Georgia. Alexander’s parents, Sylvia and William Shadrach Tubman, were free men, part of a group of 69 freed slaves whose transportation to Liberia in 1844 was paid for by his former mistress Emily Harvey Thomas Tubman, a widow and philanthropist in Augusta, Georgia was done by the person.

Emily Tubman was instrumental in the pacification of enslaved African Americans and paid for their transportation to Liberia for “repatriation”. Initially, he had great difficulty freeing his slaves in pre-Bellum Georgia. His efforts to pacify the many slaves were rejected, despite appeals to the Georgia State Legislature and financial donations to the University of Georgia. Since the Nat Turner Slave Revolt in 1831, state legislatures had greatly restricted manumissions, requiring a legislative act for each, and free blacks were sent to the state for a short time to guarantee the owner posted an expensive bond. Will leave inside

Tubman sought the help of her friend and mentor, Henry Clay of Kentucky, president of the American Colonization Society. This organization, made up of both abolitionists and slaveholders, proposed colonization in Africa as a solution for free people, rather than allowing them to remain in the United States. Their presence was perceived in the South as ostracizing slaves, and in both North and South, lower-class whites resented having to compete with them for jobs. Clay assured him that sending his former slaves to Liberia would be a safe and suitable option. After arriving in Liberia, this group of freedmen took “Tubman” as their surname and settled together. He named his community Tubman Hill after his benefactor.

education

William Tubman, the second son, went to elementary school in Harper, followed by the Methodist Cape Palmas Seminary and Harper County High School. Starting in 1910, when he was 15, he participated in several military campaigns within the country until 1917, being promoted from private to officer.

Planning to become a preacher, Tubman was ordained as a Methodist lay preacher at the age of 19. After studying law under various private tutors, he passed the bar examination and became an advocate in 1917.

career

Tubman was soon employed as a recorder in the Maryland County Monthly and Probate Court, a tax collector, teacher, and colonel in a militia.

Elected offices

After joining the True Whig Party (TWP), Liberia’s dominant party since 1878, Tubman began a career in politics. In 1923, at age 28, he was elected to the Senate of Liberia from Maryland County, holding the record as the youngest senator in Liberian history.[9] Identifying as a “convivial cannibal from the downcoast hinterland”, he fought for constitutional rights for members of indigenous tribal groups, which included a large number of Liberians.

Re-elected as a senator in 1929, Tubman became legal advisor to Vice President Allen Yancy. He resigned from the Senate in 1931 to defend Liberia before the League of Nations, amid allegations that his country was using slave labor. Tubman was re-elected to the national legislature in 1934; He resigned in 1937 after being appointed by President Edwin Barclay as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia.[4] Where he served till 1943. An official biography speculates that Barclay appointed Tubman to the Liberian Supreme Court in order to eliminate her as a contender for the presidency.

president of liberia

In December 1942, Liberia was to elect a successor to President Edwin Barkley. Six candidates ran for office; The two favorites were Tubman and Secretary of State Clarence L. Simpson. Tubman was elected president on May 4, 1943, at the age of 48, and was inaugurated on January 3, 1944.

While the United States, its ally, began basing military operations in the country after entering World War II, Liberia did not declare war on Germany and Japan until 27 January 1944. In April 1944, Liberia joined the Allies by signing the Declaration. by the United Nations.

Breaking diplomatic relations with Germany and expelling German citizens from Liberia was a difficult decision for Tubman for economic and social reasons: (1) German merchants were an integral part of Liberia’s economy; (2) Germany was Liberia’s major trading partner; and (3), the majority of doctors in Liberia were German. Under the above declaration, Tubman agreed to expel all German residents and oppose the Axis powers.

foreign Relations

Liberian policy is committed to the concept of a free enterprise system, democracy and a pragmatic search for solutions to the problems of multinational existence. We envision a synthesis of individual states maintaining their own way of life, but united by mutual exchange of people, goods and ideas, agreements of non-aggression, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and in lasting peace.

In foreign policy, Tubman aligned her country with the United States, which she called “our strongest, closest, and most reliable friend”. In June 1944, she and former President Edwin Barkley visited the White House as the guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, becoming the first African heads of state to be received there.[3] After the war, which resulted in an anti-colonial movement on the African continent, Tubman strengthened ties between fellow Africans by attending the Asian-African Conference of 1955, and the First Conference of Independent African States in Accra, chaired by Kwame in 1958 was organized. Nkrumah of Ghana. In 1959, Tubman organized the Second Conference of African States.

In 1961, after the Pan-African Conference held in Monrovia, Tubman helped establish the African Union. In contrast to the “revolutionary” group based in Casablanca, this association of “moderate” African leaders worked for the gradual integration of Africa.

We make no war against socialism if it is kept within territories and among people who are so inclined, but we will fight to the death any attempt to try and impose upon us a mystical illusion.

Tubman’s government was critical of communism, and avoided establishing diplomatic relations with most communist countries (Yugoslavia, which was highly regarded by the Liberian government, was the lone exception); However, Liberia exchanged trade and goodwill missions with the Soviet Union and other Eastern European states.

Economic Development

When Tubman was appointed to the Supreme Court in the 1930s, Liberia was severely underdeveloped, lacking an infrastructure of roads, railways, and sanitation systems. Tubman said that Liberia had never received “the benefits of colonization”, by which she meant investment by a wealthy major power to develop the country’s infrastructure. He instituted an economic policy known as “Porte Overte” (“Open Door”) to attract foreign investment. He encouraged development, while working to facilitate and encourage foreign businesses to locate in Liberia. Between 1944 and 1970, there was a 200% increase in the value of foreign investment, mainly from the United States. From 1950 to 1960, Liberia experienced an average annual growth of 11.5%.

As the economy expanded, Tubman secured revenue for the government to build and modernize infrastructure: Monrovia’s streets were paved, a public sanitation system was established, hospitals were built,[8] And in 1948 a literacy program was started. During Tubman’s administration, several thousand kilometers of roads were built, as well as a railway line connecting iron mines to the coast to transport this commodity for export.[23] During this period, he turned the port of Monrovia into a free port to encourage trade.

In the early 1960s, Liberia began to enjoy its first era of prosperity, thanks in part to the implementation of Tubman’s policies and development. It was during this time that Tubman came to be regarded as a pro-Western, stabilizing influence in West Africa at a time when other countries were gaining independence – often amidst violence. During the 1960s, several Western politicians, notably US President Lyndon B. Johnson welcomes Tubman.

In the past, much of Liberia’s production depended on rubber. But with Tubman modernizing the state’s infrastructure, Liberia began to harness its other national resources. Several American-Liberian nationalities, German and Swedish companies became involved in the exploitation of the iron mines—making Liberia the first source of iron in Africa and the fourth worldwide. Tubman wanted to diversify the economy, instead relying on rubber and iron resources, which accounted for 90% of the country’s exports. He encouraged the development of coffee plantations, oil palm, sugarcane, and especially rice cultivation in 1966 (with the help of Taiwan).

In her personal life, Tubman courted Amy Ashwood Garvey, and had a long-term relationship with her.

heritage

Tubman is known for her policies of national integration and economic openness. He tried to reconcile the interests of the native tribes with those of the American-Liberian elite and increased foreign investment in Liberia to encourage economic development.

During the 1950s, Liberia had the second highest rate of economic growth in the world. By the time of his death in 1971, Liberia had the world’s largest merchant fleet, the world’s largest rubber industry, the world’s third largest exporter of iron ore, and attracted foreign investment of over US$1 billion. was.

Tubman died in a London clinic at the age of 75, following post-operative complications from prostate surgery.[28] He was succeeded by his longtime vice president, William Tolbert. Political discontent grew after Tubman’s autocratic rule, and new groups wanted a share of the country’s success. The dominance of the True Whig Party was overthrown in 1980 by the People’s Redemption Council, a group of soldiers led by Samuel Doe. The ensuing civil wars and violence destroyed the economic prosperity of Liberia’s Golden Age.

Source: Wikipedia

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