USAID on Somalia and me on Liberia (Links)

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Americo - Liberians, Larry Meserve, Somalia, True Whig Party, USAID

I’ve got a piece up on Compare Afrique (a DC-based blog on Africa with a wider scope than Africa in DC) that reconsiders Americo – Liberians and the True Whig Party of Liberian settlers that ruled the country until 1980.

Liberia’s black settlers and Zimbabwe’s white settlers are two of my major African historical interests.

On a note pertaining more specifically to the Africa in DC theme, a few weeks ago the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy Africa Discussion Group hosted a senior USAID official who discussed US development efforts in Somalia.  Read about it here.

Weekend Africa in DC Anecdotes: The DC Connection in the Attempted Assassination (1955) of Liberia’s President Tubman

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1955 election Liberia, Howard University, S. David Coleman, True Whig Party, Tuan Wreh, William David Coleman, William Tubman

In my Africa in DC Guide I list the Library of Congress as having the area’s most impressive Africana resources and I often go there to further my knowledge of recent African history.  I usually peruse the Library’s collection of African newspapers, but today I went for the books.

I stumbled across “Love of Liberty: The rule of President William V. S. Tubman in Liberia, 1944-1971” by Tuan Wreh.  This book, published in 1976, offers an extremely transparent and informative critique of the more authoritative aspects of Tubman’s administration.

I found one passage in this book of particular interest.