A Salute to My Father-Part Two

By Dagbayonoh Kiah Nyanfore II, USA.

It was on a week day. A Grandcess woman came running toward our house in Claratown, Monrovia, Liberia. As she got closer, she started crying, calling my surname, “Nyanfore, Nyanfore”. The cry got louder. My mother came out of the house and ran toward her. “Nyanfore, Nyanfore, Dagbayonoh Kiah Nyanfore”. She was also calling my grand father’s name. That was how they would call my father when they are acknowledging his family background. It became clear that daddy had died. The woman came to tell us. We all cried.

Part of me was relieved that dad had gone to rest, that he would not suffer any more. As a young man, dad came from Grandcess to Monrovia for school. He wanted a better life. He wanted to become a minister of the gospel. He was a promising man; and people, particularly his family, hoped that he would become a pastor and perhaps bishop of the Methodist Church one day.
When he matriculated to Cuttington College School of Divinity, the Methodist Church gave him a scholarship and kept track of his studies. He did well in school. The church also monitored the studies of another student, the late Stephen Trowen Nagbe. Mr. Nagbe was from Sasstown. Apparently, the church had planned one of them to become the first African bishop of the Methodist Church in Liberia. Dad was rated higher academically in the school report to the church on the two students. In fact, the communication further stated. "Mr. Stephen Nagbe has now been with us for one year and a half, and although his mental ability is not as good as that of Mr. Nyanfor’s, we have found him to be very cooperative, sincere and with wonderful qualities for Christian ministry to which he is called."

But father’s advocacy on and out of campus did not please the school and the church. He was speaking out on issues and standing up for his principles. He refuted the notion that Africans were inferior, that the African culture was second to Western culture. The school and the church conspired to make him suffer and worry. Mr. Nagbe on the other hand, was non-controversial as reported. He later became bishop of the Methodist Church.

While bishop, he authorized the demolition of the entire Claratown, a property which the Methodist Church owned. Eyes witnesses indicated that the day of the destruction was chaotic — some residents were out at work, others were at the market, and students were at school when, surprisingly, bulldozers entered the town in broad daylight and destroyed the community. Residents were in disarray and did not know where to go. A community leader whose dead body was laid at home was rushed out. The roads, the street were blocked. People were crying. The community was demolished. The church had no future plan for the area. The site was empty for many years. Therefore, people asked, why did they destroy the community?

Dad would not have destroyed Claratown if he were the bishop. The town was his home away from home. He would have found a solution to any problem that existed and saved the town. The residents and other members of the Kru tribe were mad at the church and at the bishop for the demolition. Bishop Nagbe was Kru and so were the residents. He died later.

Before father went to Cuttington, dad founded a group called “Geenanyanobo”, meaning, “Know Yourself”. The philosophy was that you must know who you are, your background and uphold your culture and principles. By doing so, others would not be able to define you and indoctrinate you. You will gain inner strength. The group met in our house in Claratown before the demolition. When they had social functions, dad would beat the drum and sometimes tell jokes. He would act as the comedian, sort of.

Father gave us Kru names after family members. When he sneezed, he would say – “Dagbayonoh Kiah Nyanfore, Nyanfore Kiah, Kiah Nyanfore, Dogbue Krogba”. At first, I would laugh when he said that. But later when I learned the meaning, I was proud. He was answering to his ancestors, informing them of his presence and paying homage and honor to them.

Dad had told us, we the children, not to ask others for things that we did not have and not to lie. One day, Kay, a boy who brought bread to the yard, had a toy with him. I liked it and therefore asked him if I could have the toy. He said yes. When father saw the toy with me he asked where I got it from. “Kay gave it to me”, I answered. When Kay came the next day, dad inquired about the toy and found out that I asked for it. He beat me that day. That was my first and only beating from father. I cried and was mad because I felt that it was given to me, so why should he beat me. But the point was that I lied. Though Kay gave me the toy, I deprived him having it and enjoying what someone had bought for him. Later when I calmed down, I saw daddy’s point.

Dad was a good preacher. He preached and sang just like a folk storyteller. People would say, “Your father can preach. He can make people laugh when he preaches.” Dad preached in the Kru language most of the time. When he graduated from Cuttington, his group had a reception for him. People were happy for him and wished him the best. The Methodist Church was to assign him to the Pattern Memorial Church in Monrovia as the pastor. The minister there, an older man, did not want to leave. Dad worked with him. But he would not want dad to preach. This went on for a while. It looked like father could not take it anymore. So one Sunday, when he was scheduled to preach, they told him not to, but he persisted and he and the minister struggled over the pulpit. It was embarrassing, but dad defended his action. He felt being taken advantage of. He left the church frustrated.

Dad’s frustration seemed to have gotten to him so much that he did not pay attention crossing a street near Coleman Hill. A car almost killed him. The news got to us in Claratown. “Nyanfore will kill himself with this church thing. He is educated, why not he get government work and forget about this church business," people told my mother. However, dad would not last long on a government job if he were employed. He would speak out against corruption and other practices and would leave or get fired.

Dad could have become a teacher. I think he would have done well with that. He was good at teaching people and explaining things. He helped me with my elementary school homework, taught my stepmother Ma Juah, ABC and how to write and spell her name. He also taught her sewing. Pa learned that when he was in the army before college. Teaching, however, was not on his mind.

Father was a quiet man, intelligent, good looking, a gentleman and an honest man. Some educated people in Claratown would try to quiz him, testing him on different subjects. He would just smile, say nothing or change the discussion. He did not have to prove his intelligence. When dad was in high school in Monrovia, he worked for an American public health project. His boss wrote that one of the qualities he admired about father was his honesty. When dad really got mad, which happened once in a blue moon, he would stammer and would pound his fist on the table. You would see the vexation in his eyes; fired, cat looking eyes. Looking back, that anger could have increased his blood pressure. But in Africa, we do not consider that when we get mad.

Being the oldest boy, I was like his partner. I accompanied him to places. On our way from the stores downtown, he would act like a boy or a kid, kicking an empty soda can while walking home. It was like he was kicking football, soccer. I enjoyed that. Daddy was just human, being a kid again.

Father was so determined to become a minister, he joined a prophet church on Front Street. The church was headed by a Nigerian Apostle and dominated by Nigerians. Again, dad left the church after a while, stating that the focus there was on the Apostle and not on God or Jesus.

Dad was hard on friends whom he felt were not committed to Geenyannobo. Some he considered being sold-out and would not talk to them. Many of the friends were ordinary Liberians of Grandcess background. Unlike dad whose family could afford to help him financially, they had to struggle with the hardship of Monrovia. Many did not have college education like father. But before he left for Grandcess and later for Cape Palmas, he reached out to them and made peace. I should have known that he was saying goodbye to them.

Dad had no employment after college. He owned no money, no property and left us with no inheritance. He died of kidney problem. He was about 45 years old. As a boy, I inherited some of father’s personality unknowingly. It is this, my story, I want to tell.

My Story

During the last two years of dad’s illness, the Nyanfore’s family, mainly Aunty Mary and Uncle James, decided to reach out to the James Nyanfore’s children. Unfortunately, the family did not extend this gesture to my other siblings, Ma Juah’s children. The family blamed dad’s situation on her for not discouraging him of his advocacy. They felt that if she were educated, she would have successfully done so. Yet they failed to consider that it was Ma Juah who struggled with dad to make ends meet by petty trading in Suakoko, Cuttington. They failed to know that father was his own man and even the Pope could not change his mind.

I was sent to Grandcess, now part of Grand Kru County, to live with Uncle James. Sister Elizabeth went to Aunty Mary in Cape Palmas, Maryland County. I had had wanted to go to the rural area. To me the children from there were smarter and stronger. Their form of education was, during those days, patterned after the English or British standard. So when Uncle James asked me if I wanted to go with him to Grandcess, I replied yes. I was happy, excited and eager.

In Grandcess

I was about ten years old when I went to Grandcess. It was a beautiful land with a grassy landscape. Uncle James lived in a big bungalow in a compound with many houses, some of which he rented to the government for administration of the Grandcess territory, as the area was called. We called uncle’s wife Ma, though the Grandcess people named her Chea Dee. She was a Congo woman from Brewerville, Virginia, Liberia. She was a retired school teacher. She favored some children over the others in the house. As a form of punishment or discipline, she would sit on a child with her about 300 pounds weight. The child would cry and she would not stop until she got tired sitting.

When uncle and I walked to a house, which he was building near the beach, I would complain the way ma was punishing us. Wearing a suspendered suit, he would put his hand on my shoulder while walking with a cane. “Kiah, Ma is right. She wants you people to act right," he would say.

“But uncle that is not right. One of us could die from that kind of punishment”, I replied. He would change the subject. “Kiah, Grandcess is your home. This is where your great, great- great grandfather, Jglay, was born. He born Jappah. Jappah born Dagbayonoh Nyanfore, your great grandfather and my father Nimeley. Uncle Dagbayonoh born Kiah, whom you were named after. Kiah born your father”, telling me the old genealogical history. I had somewhat heard this story before and was paying no attention. “One day”, he continued, “you will become Superintendent of Grandcess”. “Superintendent one day, who is thinking about that; I just want to get the hell out of here," I said to myself.

Uncle James was a Superintendent of Grandcess. I remembered when President Tubman retired him. He typed a letter to Tubman, thanking him for the opportunity to serve the people of Grandcess. I was in the room when he was typing with one figure, “tar tar tar”. We called it breaking palm kernel. He typed the letter three or four times. There was a dictionary on the table and he asked me to look up a big word, which I never heard of. I did not know how to spell the word and how to look it up. Realizing that I could not come up with something, he jerked the dictionary from me. “I do not know what you Monrovia children learn in school," he said disappointingly. I was sorry that I could not help. That was in Monrovia when I was visiting him before coming to Grandcess.

In Grandcess, the treatment did not stop. So I ran away to Cape Palmas by boat to Aunty Mary. But the people in the boat realized that I was running away when I got seasick and was throwing up. “Who is this boy always vomiting? One passenger asked. My head was down from the sickness. Another passenger lifted up my head. Isn’t he Nimeley Nah’s nephew? Uncle James’ Kru name. “Yes”, they answered. “But what is he doing here? Did Nimeley Nah tell you about him traveling?” He asked the boat captain. The captain answered no.

“This boy could cause you trouble”, the passengers warmed. The captain decided to hold and take me straight to Aunty Mary when we landed.
My first day in Cape Palmas I tried to speak Kru to Sister Elizabeth. She cautioned me. “Brother, aunty does not want mother’s tongue spoken here oh”. “Why”, I asked. “Aunty said this is a kwee house”, she replied. Kwee in Kru means civilized, Westernized or White.

Aunty Mary was a good and quiet person, just like Uncle James. She had done a lot for dad and for the Nyanfore family. She paid all of dad’s medical expenses. She also took dad to religious healers for prayer. She did everything possible to make father well. But she was too much into the Americo Liberian or Congo thing. She was of the Maryland high class society. The Tubmans, the Wilsons, the Andersons, the Gibsons and the Neals were the class of people she mingled with. Aunty married to Mr. John Wilson, Sr. His family members or children did no chore. The house was thoroughly cleaned whenever any Wilson’s family member visited.

The Wilson’s children did not regard her high as she did to them. They called her God mother, instead of Ma or step mother. When aunty earlier married Mr. Wilson, his oldest son, who was in school abroad, wrote his father that he did not want country woman, referring to aunty, in the family house. Aunty Mary however treated them as her own children and paid no mind to the way they viewed her.

In Monrovia, Mr. Wilson called me his ward, though he married my aunt and correctly I was his nephew in-law. In the Liberian system, a ward was a child from the country and who lived with an Americo Liberian as a servant. The child had no relation to the master other than he/she was a domestic help, laboring free; cleaning, washing, cooking and doing other chores in the house. He/she could attend school in the afternoon and usually took the master’s surname. This of course was similar to an old practice in America when the American White landowners attempted to use native Indians to work for them. The Whites abolished this practice due to resistance from the Indians. In place of the Indians and contract laborers, indentured servants from Europe, the Whites turned to Black slave labor, hence slavery.

Mr. Wilson treatment of children living in the house was so unfair that one day, I said to him that he was practicing discrimination. He was shocked. “Mary”, calling my aunt, did you hear that? This boy will not live here. There cannot be two masters in this house”, he said. Aunty walked toward me. “Old man, old man” pointing her finger at me. “You will go to your early grave like your father if you continue with this behavior," she warned.

I bent down my head, feeling sad whenever she talked like that. "Old man" is my other name she would call me because I am her father’s namesake. I walked slowly downstairs to the room where I slept, thinking about dad. Sometimes, I blamed father for his death, I got confused. “Will I die like dad? Will I die because I said Mr. Wilson was practicing discrimination? All this ran through my mind. House children living in Mr. Wilson’s house could not eat in the dining room. They ate in the kitchen or downstairs outside and were the last to eat.

Mr. Wilson really was not an Americo Liberian or a Congo, though he acted like one. His father came from Togo. One of Mr. Wilson’s brothers was Dash Wilson, former Chief Justice of the Liberian Supreme Court during the Tubman administration. Particularly in the late 1800s and early 1900s, foreigners from West Africa came willingly to Liberia for a better life. In those days in Liberia, a foreigner or person of foreign background was preferred over a native. The government gave a foreigner more and better opportunity than it gave to a country person. The government seemed to feel that foreigners would be more loyal to its rule than natives. The coming of foreigners to Liberia was influenced by a government policy to recruit foreign educated individuals to help run the country’s public administration. The same applied to the Congos, Africans from the Niger-Congo delta who were recaptured in the 1800s from slave ships on the way to America and were sent to Liberia. They came from countries such as Nigeria, Niger, Togo, Benin and Congo. Though they were Africans and were not educated, they became part of the Americo Liberian structure and they looked down on native Liberians. They were favored over the natives.

Back to my staying in Cape Palmas. Aunty Mary sent me back to Grandcess, despite pleading to her for me to stay in Cape Palmas and attend school there. A night before I left, I ran away to Krutown in Harper, where a relative of my mother was residing. I did not know about this relative until Sister Elizabeth told me. I went there that night. But Aunty Mary found out and I was forcibly removed. I was detained in a room that night until the next morning. Two young men held my hands to the port as if I were a criminal. I did not want to go back. When the boat sailed at sea, I jumped in the water, even though I could not swim. A boat assistant jumped to save me.

“You want to die eh”? He asked. Again two men held my hands until we landed in Grandcess.

When I returned to Grandcess, the bad treatment intensified. I was mad at aunty for sending me back. However, as I grew up, I understood her reason: you see, Uncle James was the patriarch of the Nyanfore and Nimeley family. He was an elder. As stated before, his father, Nimeley, and Aunty Mary’s grandfather, Dagbayonoh Nyanfore, were brothers from one mother and father.

Aunty Mary could not disrespect his order to send me back. In Grandcess, Uncle James was a well respected man. Educated in Sierra Leone, he returned to Grandcess and became a wealthy business man with investment in real-estate. His father was a dogbwuo, warrior. His immediate ancestors were one of the original eight pantons or clans which founded Grandcess. Leadership of the area was rotated among the pantons before the central government abolished the rule by traditional authority. Also King Basli made him envoy to meet with European maritime companies for economic development of Grandcess. He was an important man. .

In Grandcess, I planned again to run away. This time I walked to Sasstown, now part of Grand Kru County. I did not know any one there. I pretended going to the farm. The canoe man who carried me across the river between Grandcess and Picnic Cess realized later that I was Uncle James’ nephew. He tried to stop me when the canoe landed. I ran. He ran after me but could not catch me. When I looked back, he had stopped running. He bent down, resting his hands on his knees. He was exhausted.

I left Grandcess early in the morning and arrived in Sasstown at night. I met some soldiers on the road and traveled with them. They acted as security. When we passed through towns in Picnic Cess, I proudly walked like a soldier, moving my arms following the soldiers. Kids, some of my age, saw me and said in Kru. “Soldier jugba”, soldier small boy or child. I did not look at them.
At the Sasstown village I first entered, I told the villagers that I was Kiah Nyanfore, great grand son of King Dagbayonoh Nyanfore of Grandcess. They knew my family and told me that the commissioner’s wife was a Nyanfore. A villager took me to her. I was tired and hungry. They had had dinner when I got there. However, they managed to find some food for me.

The next morning I told my situation to the commissioner’s wife, whom I respectfully addressed as aunty. Tears were coming from my eyes as I talked. She consoled me and stated that she would not inform Uncle James that I was with her. “I will try to get you to your mother”, she added. I was happy. In Sasstown while waiting for the ship to take me to Monrovia, I encountered a problem, not from an adult, but from the commissioner’s wife’s nephew — he was about two years older than I and was stronger. He and I ate in a big bowl. He would partition the food, taking 75%. The small mattress which we slept on, he would push me to the edge. At one time, he pushed me to the floor. He had the habit of hitting my head before leaving for school.

But on this particular day, I said to myself, enough is enough. He tried to knock my head. I grasped his hand in the air. “Let my hand go” he demanded. I held it for awhile and grabbed both legs and knocked him down, punching him. I punched him madly several times. A neighbor tried to separate us, but his aunt told the neighbor not to. “He has been troubling this boy for a long time but the boy has been ignoring him. The boy just wants to go to his mother in Monrovia. It is the boy’s God that is beating him”, the aunt informed the neighbors.

This reminded me of dad when he fought against injustice in the church.
We became friends after the fight. We did everything equally. He was surprised that I did not treat him the way he did to me. When the ship arrived at Sasstown, I picked up my bag, but he took it from me and carried it for me. “This is my way of saying goodbye”, he stated smiling. When I got to Monrovia, I walked from the Freeport to Claratown. The walk was a piece of cake. I was happy to be back to my mother.

My problem in Sasstown taught me a lesson: That people will mistreat you or will continue to do you wrong as long as you allow them. To them, it is in their best interest to mistreat you, just like the commissioner’s wife’s nephew eating more food by depriving me of my equal share. But if you take action, most of the time, they will stop and perhaps regain their humanity. People take advantage of those whom they feel cannot fight back, considered of less value or who are vulnerable.

At CWA

Back in Monrovia, I took my studies seriously unlike when I was in Grandcess. I received double promotions. I was the dux, or took the first place in my classes. I later entered CWA, College of West Africa, in the seventh grade and resided at the boys’ hostel, thanks to the Methodist Church. The church gave me a scholarship. I was the dux of my class. I was also my class Vice President and secretary of our model UN Club. CWA was the high school where most members of the ruling class, the Americo-Liberians, sent their children. Admission was hard. The school had a legacy as the leading secondary institution where most of the nation’s leaders graduated from.

The Methodist Church did its best to attempt to level the domination of the student body by the Americo-Liberians. The church gave scholarships to students from the rural areas to attend CWA and live at the hostel. Some of the students were Joseph Boakai, now Vice President of Liberia under the Sirleaf administration, Romeo Suah, Joseph Yekai, Edward Yardolo and Nyekie Kerkula. Mr. Boakai, in particular, was a quiet student, easy going, walked slowly and liked playing checkers.

To meet general expenses, I worked as a janitor cleaning classrooms. Mr. Andrew, head of the janitorial staff, hired me and Ernest Bruce, another student at the hostel. The maximum pay was $10.00 US a month. That was enough for me. I was able to save some money to open an account at the Monrovia Bank. I gave some money to my mother. The job was my first and only employment in Liberia as a boy. Before I went to Grandcess, I sold empty bottles. I got them from the dumpsite, washed them, cleaned them up and sold them to the beer factory. That was not easy work, considering carrying back home rejected cleaned bottles. I also sold kerosene, going around in the community with the kerosene bottles on my head, saying, “Fine, fine kerosene go, five cents." Unlike pre-Grandcess days, my cleaning work at CWA provided a guaranteed income once I kept the job.

One Saturday mornings at the hostel, when we had finished eating breakfast in the cafeteria, we were searched as we about to leave the hall. Willis Knuckles, president of the student council, had lost his money. One by one they, Willis Knuckles and his cronies, searched our pockets. They suspected a particular student named “Trouble Williams” of being the thief. First they searched his pockets and found nothing. However, they did more than that. They took him to the men’s room, stripped him naked and searched his private part. They found nothing again. The humiliation was so much that Trouble Williams left the hostel and never returned to CWA.

This was absolutely wrong. Why should we be searched because of Willis Knuckles, when others had lost money on campus and nothing was done about it? Why should a fellow student be humiliated? The opportunity for him to complete CWA was psychologically taken away from him. He lost his dignity. He just could not take the disgrace. Trouble Williams was a Bassa boy, a country boy, who was always jovial, playing the guitar and singing. Would they have done this to him if he were a Cooper or Dennis? Certainly not.
Willis Knuckles, to the best of my knowledge, did not apologize to Trouble Williams for the wrongful humiliation. Neither did the hostel or the school administration. This was an example of children of the elite doing what they pleased with impunity or without consequences. Trouble Williams was considered a friend of Knuckles and others, including Eugene Peabody, the late Raymond Horace and Sama Traub. Yet he was looked down upon and treated that way. I was mad at this treatment. In my advocacy, I was called “student at law”. Some said that I argued too much and tried to plead law on matters. Students such as Eugene Peabody, Rupert Marshall, Kronyan Weefur, Benjamin Dugbe, Martin Dean and Lawrence Nya Kwiawon Taryor inspired me and gave me encouragement by their personalities and words of advice. They were senior students and acted as big brothers.

I admired other people, including the late J. Rudolph Grimes, George Henries, Pa Bonigo Daniel, Gargar Washington and Peter Jarkloh Slewion. They guided me, counseled me and served as God fathers to me as a boy. Like dad, I was generally quiet, but on the other hand, like him, I argued and advocated on issues. I wanted to become a diplomat and a lawyer like Mr. Grimes and Mr. Henries respectively.

Not all Americo Liberians or Congo people mistreated or looked down on native Liberians. There were good, fair and honest Americo Liberians. But in all they represented a system which suppressed and oppressed native Liberians by design. That is, they think native people should be servants or subordinates and they, the ruling class, should always rule. Coming from America, they felt that they were civilized, educated and better than the native people. Yet the truth remains that about 90% of the ex-slaves that migrated to Liberia in the 1800s were illiterate. As slaves and former slaves in America, they were not “civilized”, as defined by Western standards, a yardstick which they used against the natives. They existed at the periphery of American culture and Western civilization.

The Congos who arrived later did not speak nor understand English. They came to Liberia without proper clothing and were suppressed by the ex-slaves, or the settlers from America. The Congos were put under the tutelage of the ex-slaves by the American Colonization Society. In part because of the suppression, the Congos set up settlements up river and engaged in subsistence farming, leaving the urban areas and administration of the government to the Americo Liberians. The Congos were generally poor; the men wore patched pants and brought cassava, fire woods, sugar cane and other farm goods by canoes on the St. Paul River to the market place. Yet the attitude of superiority by the settlers existed very much during my boyhood in Liberia. Even now, some descendants of the settlers still have this false sense of superiority.

While I was at CWA, my mother, a market woman, was having difficulties collecting money, which she had borrowed to a man in Claratown. The man was influential in the community and residents generally feared him. Some said that he had spiritual power. My mother needed the money for her market; so I tried to resolve the problem amicably by speaking to him but he paid me no mind. The local justice of peace was corrupt. I took the matter to George Henries, who was then Deputy Attorney General. The man was summoned to the Department of Justice, now Ministry of Justice, and was compiled to pay.
Uncle James and ma, his wife, visited Monrovia. I went to see them. They were not mad at me for running away. They were glad that I was doing well in school and advised me to continue to be serious with my education. I do not know my future or what would have happened to me had I stayed in Grandcess. But I do know that I would have continued to be unhappy from the bad treatment had I stayed.

At the hostel we attended church services on Sunday at the Methodist Church on Ashmun Street. A young man named David Sieh Doe, a graduate of Cuttington after my father, became pastor of the church. He came from Barclayville. Like dad, he was progressive. Most students admired his preaching; he did not bite his tongue. But he was under constant attack from the establishment for his outspokenness from the pulpit. Shad Tubman, son of President Tubman, had to come to his defense, which temporarily stopped the harassment. He reminded me of dad.

During my studies at CWA, I had the ability to summarize an entire book, speech or lecture with one or two words. Students at the hostel would call me to summarize things during evening devotions. One of my hobbies was clothing; I liked fine clothing. I would look over the pages of Sears and Roebuck Catalog and admired their line of clothing. From my savings and money from aunty, I ordered clothes from America. Other students would give me their money to order for them. It was fun doing that. I also liked to dance. I learned dancing on campus.

A few days before I left CWA, I wrote a poem, “So The Flag Was Made”, published in the Palm Magazine. The piece would have turned out the other way and would have troubled me inside, an inner feeling of dishonesty. I asked Martin Dean, a student on campus, to write the poem for me for publication. Martin was a talented student who could sing and compose music. He was a good writer. He thought over my request for a day or two and said no. He advised that I write the poem; that I would feel good if I did it myself, even if the piece was not published. I took his advice and wrote it. I became somewhat a small celebrity on campus when the poem was published. I really felt good, thanks to Martin. His honesty was an inspiration in my future writings.
God helped my other siblings in their schooling.

Particularly, Sister Martha attended Lott Carey Mission. Mr. Arthur Kpan, her uncle, Ma Juah’s brother, paid for her education. Also my late Sister Marylou went to LTI, Lutheran Training Institute. Her tuition was paid by a man who saw her surname Nyanfore and inquired if Ma Juah knew a man named James Nyanfore who attended Cuttington. She said yes. “He was my husband and this is his daughter." “Ma, do not worry about her tuition at LTI. I will take care of that. I’ll do it for James. He was our voice at Cuttington. Sorry for his death." God has a way to open doors for us unexpectedly. He is the father of the fatherless.

At Fryeburg Academy, USA

I left CWA in 1966 to continue my high school education in the US. I matriculated to Fryeburg Academy in Maine. Fryeburg is a prep private boarding school where some of the richest Americans sent their children. We did not have to do any chore but to study, eat, sleep and play sports. On Fridays, we received a stipend from the student account office and on weekends, we went out to movies and other events. Our laundry was done by a private company. Summer job was ready for me at the Plymouth in New York. I became friend to some of the rich white kids. Some white Americans liked me because I was from Africa and was different, yet they looked down on Black Americans.

My presence at Fryeburg was like a dream or a fairytale, from poverty to a status of wealth and privilege. This change of conditions for me could get in one’s head, pretending to be what you are not, trying to act rich and white. But dad’s philosophy of “Know Yourself” was ringing in my mind and ears, anchoring me and bringing me to reality. I joined the school debating club and made racism a focus of discussion and debate. I wrote “The American Negro, What About Him?” which was published and I got paid for it. The article was my first published piece in the US. My history teacher Mr. Eldridge asked that I read it in class. I did. The class clapped when I finished. I realized that taking a position on matters was honorable, and saying nothing and pretending things to be fine was cowardice.

I have observed that some educated African Americans, when they are with white people, avoid talking about racism. They pretend that it did not or does not exist. They fear what their white friends would think of them. The same is with Liberians. We do not openly talk about our social cleavages and polarization. We pretend that things are fine, that we are one, though the civil war proved otherwise. Moreover, some educated native Liberians, especially during the Tubman presidency, engaged in “the aristocratic embrace”, admiring and acting like Congos. They also failed to speak or teach their native languages to their children; believing that the children would be considered civilized and not viewed as ""country. Although the children became kwee and identified with the establishment, they lost their culture and heritage.

Mr. Paul McGuire, my advisor at Fryeburg, asked me where I got the spirit of advocacy from. I replied with a smile, “from my dad.” He asked further, “Was he a political leader, a freedom fighter or a human rights lawyer”? Again, I answered with a smile. “He was a man of principles, integrity and stood up for what he believed to be right. He did not like people to take advantage of him or others."

At Fryeburg, I played soccer and did wrestling. We won the State Class C Wrestling Championship in 1968. Prior to my graduation from Fryeburg, I had the opportunity to play professional soccer with the New York Generals or to go straight to college. I chose the latter. I entered and graduated from Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, where President Bill Clinton and Ambassador Dew Tuan-Wleh Mayson are fellow graduates.

At Georgetown, Dew became my fraternal brother and later my progressive comrade. I admired his serious study habit: he would play in the day, but would study hard all night, putting his feet in a bucket of water and studied until the next morning. Many students were puzzled why Dew would carry a bucket with him to the general study hall, though this method keeps the body awake and alert at night and seemingly improves the brain’s retention of information. He spent three years at Georgetown instead of the required four years.

At GU also, I founded the African Students Union, whose purpose was to bring African students together and to advocate their rights at Georgetown. The African independence movement, and the American civil rights struggle and “socio-cultural revolution” of the 60s enhanced my advocacy and cultural identity and pride in America, a historical period which I will never forget in my life.

While I was in America, Mr. Wilson died. Later Aunty Mary passed on. But the Wilson’s children, except Teeblee, took all the marital properties, including the 200 acres rubber farm without regard to aunty, who had worked so hard and struggled for the farm and other properties. Their reason, I guessed, was the fact that she was a country woman, had no biological children and there was no one in Liberia to speak on her behalf. Sadly moreover, when she died, Samuel Wilson, a son whom Mr. Wilson never acknowledged, took sole possession of the farm. He did so just after he became a representative of Maryland County in the Bryant government. He felt that with political power, he could do anything without question. I thought about dad. If he were alive, he would not have allowed that to happen. He would have spoken out and fought for his sister.

I spent days at the library and at other places conducting primary and secondary research on Grandcess and on my family. I followed that up with serious research on Liberian history. This also enabled me to talk or write on Liberian history with confidence and authority. Scholarly and non-scholarly works also inspired my thinking in America. Specifically, works by Professor Gus Liebonow, “The Evolution of Privilege”, Frantz Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth”, Richard Wright’s “Black Boy”, works by Kwame Nkrumah, and above all, Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, which became my bible. It also revolutionized my view of the Liberian society.

Moreover, in America, I officially changed my name from Samuel Kiah Nyanfore to Dagbayonoh Kiah Nyanfore, the traditional name of by grandfather, whom I was named after. I know that daddy would have been proud of me for doing that. Additionally, dad would have been happy to know of my commitment to God and my consistency of principles, honesty and integrity.

I missed you dad. On this Father’s Day, I salute you again. I thank you for having an impact on my life. May your soul rest in peace!