Liberian Literary Magazine
each chapter in the book
consisted of stories from a
separate “tribe,” I noticed
common
themes
and
characters. That insight led to
the main thrust of my work
today, which is reminding
Liberians of our deep and
enduring commonalities.
For example, Spider the
trickster
was
not
only
common to all Liberian
groups; stories about him
span West Africa and the
Caribbean. Funny as it may
sound, it was actually Spider
who first led me to a panAfrican consciousness — the
realization
that
African
people,
despite
their
diversity,
share
certain
underlying similarities!
Another
important
influence from my high school
days was a biography of
Edward Wilmot Blyden, a
Liberian
journalist
and
clergyman who lived about a
hundred years before. Blyden
argued that Africans share a
deep, long and glorious past.
At a time when white
supremacy
was
widely
accepted, he rejected the
idea that blacks were inferior
to whites or any other people.
My specific interest in the
history of Liberians took an
academic turn in the late
1970s, when I encountered
the writings of Dr. Mary
Antoinette Brown-Sherman. A
devotee of Blyden, she
encouraged Liberian scholars
to build upon local traditions.
In my view, Dr. BrownSherman was the greatest
Liberian scholar of the late
twentieth century. Her work
on the role of the Poro Society
in education inspired my
January Issue 0115
underfunded, but they have
deepened
public
understanding
and
appreciation
of
African
history.
They
have
highlighted some people and
events that were wrongly
overlooked.
Like
David
battling Goliath, they have
helped produce a more
accurate record based more
on evidence than speculation.
research
on
African
spirituality or “the way of the
ancestors.” Regrettably, a lot
of Liberians pay lip-service to
her legacy but fail to heed her
admonitions or to build upon
her approach.
While in college, I also
“discovered” the writings of
Dr. Walter A. Rodney, whose
best known work is How
Europe
Underdeveloped
Africa. From Rodney I learned
that history is made as much
by those who till the rice
fields as by merchants and
monarchs. His History of the
Upper Guinea Coast: 15451800 is the most important
history of the Mano River
Region published in the last
50 years. But many scholars in
Liberian
studies
shun
Rodney’s works because he
did not share their worldview.
How do you approach your
work?
I approach the writing of
history from an African
perspective.
Scholars
employing
African
perspective
relatively
few
12
an
are
and
For people who are trained
to write about the past,
history is more than just
“stories;” it is “organized
knowledge.” In order to
organize knowledge of the
past, historians must draw
evidence from a variety of
sources.
For one of my upcoming
books, I used many, many
documents that were first
published
in
Arabic,
Portuguese,
Spanish
and
French. In addition
to
documents, I draw evidence
from
oral
traditions,
archaeological digs, historical
linguistics, studies of cultural
patterns embedded in masks
and other forms of material
culture,
regional
and
continental histories that
provide essential context,
and
even
biological
anthropology.
Organizing
knowledge
involves
more
than
assembling multiple sources.
Historians must ask critical
questions about each one: Is
it authentic? Is it original? Is it
reliable? Is it typical? Who
created it? When and where
and why was it created? Their
goal is to “choose reliable
sources, to read them