[Applause] [Applause] I live on me [Applause] I don’t know Days Today Happy birthday hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to yet another edition of the library History Channel on focus on Liberia my name is Dennis ja and we are broadcasting from Atlanta Georgia in tonight’s edition of the library History Channel we’re going to be talking about someone very special that’s
Going to be a subject of our discussion tonight please or share the show invite someone Facebook has put something on us that uh people are not getting our notification we have over 30 000 subscribers but they are not getting our notifications so please share the show invite someone and let’s dig deep
Into library history of course as usual we have our presenter Carl family Carl welcome to the show it’s always my pleasure to be here we want to welcome all our viewers from across the globe this is the library History Channel with your presenter Carl family and I’m here our topic is key
Memorial of buburu call yes yeah and and uh we start us something right we talk about you know first before we start let’s talk about there’s a new kind of series I would like to say that we’ve owned we discussed some of the Kings from the the
Country we discussed some canes and uh from Maryland or the global Kingdom we’re talking about Brunel and all these people so yes give our listeners yes a bird eye view of what we’re doing so we had a series of presidential Series where we we focused on our heads
Of state over the years and we ended that series with President Tubman uh now we are looking at very important uh political personalities uh through our history uh and also uh people who contributed economically to the advancement of our country um so we’ve we’ve gone kind of all over
The place we started out with uh best little King uh Chris basketball from from cave mountains we went to look at the gravel Kings of Maryland County and some of the global leaders um that came out of there like netized or now consulate for now we talked about
Extensively and some of the others and and now we’re focused on someone who lives uh in the 19th century King thank you because uh a lot of time people who were who have not been reading history on librarian history they said well all that Brothers have history or we don’t know about the
People but there’s so much information about people about liberians both from all sides from all backgrounds that are in history in case someone is wondering you know about all these people we’re going to talk about basketball we talk about now we’re talking about okay Memorial and all these people they are there
How come other people don’t find it then you finding them call what are you doing differently I I don’t know what you mean by other people I don’t know anyone you just want to be doing this show and we talked about librarian they said oh this is my
First time but you know so so what would you maybe leave it or not they’re not they’re not curious enough to read about these people but there’s a lot I mean these are not I always joke with my friend AMA I say you know I don’t uh go digging under
Some Library archive well you know within the buried book section these are our books on librarian history uh that are most of them are pretty well known um and then also I do you know without you know I do also look at primary resource documents I do archival
Research I also do look at newspaper clippings from the time period and things like that but as far as knowing the names of these people that part of it I think is very obvious if you read any you know reasonably um accredited book about librarian history most of these figures that you mentioned
Um most books I’m like doing history talk about Benjamin Joseph Knight Anderson the Explorer they go into talking about details about um Anderson’s uh you know exploration the terms he went to some of the key figures he visited so a lot of this information isn’t hidden I think what I may be doing
Differently is just talking about it and sharing it publicly and and not uh not you know just writing it down um you and I had that discussion once I think the format in this platform is a little different because we’re actually having a discussion um in depth as opposed to it being
Written in a book where people might not bother to read it my first question you know as we talk about King memorial yes this whole concept of king king is that yeah it’s not how they were called what they call how did people in bopuru call their leader or say King
Because anytime for me personally when I think of Kenya I think of Western ideas so where does this whole idea of King come from so there’s many words in many languages that describe the same thing King essentially means ruler the person who rules the person who has
Um the The Sovereign ruler of a place is how you would describe it in English language because I do not speak um the the dialect of the people of Boku the dialects of the people it was a very multi-ethnic environment so I don’t speak Pele I don’t speak
Maninka I don’t speak you know uh uh uh uh Gola or vice so I I you know but all those languages do have a word for a sovereign ruler a monarch um in every every culture that has a king has a name for a king so the concept of having a sovereign
Ruler is not a European concept it is it is something that is universally human in any civilized human population you have leaders and so using the word King is only because we speak English but but later on we have chief it would that be the same the chief and the King
No because I mean chief is something that’s more diminutive um when it comes it’s a way of diminishing the authority of The Sovereign ruler a chief means that you are a lesser person typically and that typically you would not have um any type of uh rule over an area or
Dominion over an area or a group of people they Chief usually is like okay you’re the chief of this town you’re a town chief um that is much more of a European concept um you could use the language to describe some of the Lesser kings that reported to the greater Central
Authority it would still I think be accurate it’s more important to understand the thing ascribes the word is more important than the actual word itself um in this context we’re using the word King because the meaning of scribe to normal is that he was in fact a king he
Was in fact the leader of this area that that takes that takes us to King memorial we say king mumuru of in life piece of this granatic Genesis forms a part of the grave of King bushwin the present King’s father broken in such a way has to show the rare white
And gray in beautiful contrast a little art might have rendered it more wealthy to Max so mighty a grave yeah so this is a quote from Narrative of a journey to new Sardis by Benjamin JK Anderson and Dennis maroon were discussing about my eye a big you um so the um
The Narrative The Narrative a journey by uh of a journey to new sardu by Benjamin JK Anderson um it’s it’s uh can you make the slide a little bit bigger please Dennis I’m sorry like if you make me smaller in the slide bigger I’d appreciate it okay thank you
So Narrative of the journey to new sardu Benjamin Anderson the key words here that I wanted to point out about this slide is that um he says that the present King’s father the reason we’re talking about both swing where everybody knows from Liberian history he’s saying that both swing is Father
This is very important so this is a clue it’s not even clue is he’s saying it he met monaroo so he must know what he’s talking about Anderson documents this murmuru is the son of boatsman the reason this quote is here is because I don’t have memories date of birth
And I don’t know even his date of death but we do know he existed because many people interacted with it and in 1868 when Benjamin Joseph Knight Anderson went to Baltimore Country as they called her a condo country he met King momoru’s son and momuro
Informs him that he was the son of both swing and we all know that both swing who and who spoke English was a bollum man from present-day Sierra Leone who spoke following but was also a member of portal boatswain also worked on they described Merchant ships it was basically slave vessels slave ships
Where he was a boat swing he was a a laborer many of the coastal ethnic groups served in this capacity we had a lot of uh what they call crewmen through Grable basa and actual Cloud people in in great numbers mostly cloud and Grable and then some other Coastal people you
Know some VI and even bollum and others from from Sierra Leone will work on these vessels so it wasn’t odd that to happen so both Swain actually um and you can go back and watch the episode where we discussed boatswain had once he acquired enough wealth and power
He was armed by these slave traders to become no longer just a bull swing an arm he became an armed man in the pursuit of advancing the slave trade in the late 1700s so he moved March up to Boku with the army that was um uh empowered by these British merchants
Military might conquered the area and was said to have hoisted the British flag in Boku now he didn’t go there with women so both swing would have had to have married someone who was there and being as powerful as he was he likely married the daughter of nobility
So the product of such Union would mean that the mother of numeru was from a very powerful family so mama has powerful relatives both slain now has an alliance with the actual sovereigns of the area so um this gave him more of a footing in in
This area and he was well known to the Liberian government on the coast so both swing country is what they were calling Boko is what it was called at the time whole Pearl all right I hope that’s clear I know it kind of rambled a bit but yeah
No and I I remember Bob Peru uh from um Dr Burrows saying this is a qua or crew speaking world the origin that uh he he I don’t know what what what once you find out about where this name came from so there’s a hint also because it’s interesting Anderson’s not
The only person who went there you had everyone not blighted and Dr blyden spelled it Bo b-o p-o-r-o so you know poorer we all knew about plural and we know that both swing was a part of coral which is why he was able to have this military alliance with people
Of different ethnic groups because this Brotherhood this fraternity transcends ethnic lines so all of these different people who participate or are part of this tradition can interact with each other and coordinate with one another and so I don’t know the answer but another hypothesis is into both it’s a portal
It’s a center of plural corporal um it could also be quiet Dr bro so that’s something that I’d like to find out from and why he derived that you and I spoke about it a little bit but um I just find it interesting that these are
Poor old people in the place is called and just like the Brotherhood of the fraternity of coral the the the the place is also comprised of people from Dallas ethnic groups that participate in this so it’s very diverse ethically also because of again the slave trade and other things
Um had people from all over coming together in this place so so I got uh from what I read from like to borrows say the origin is like the place was so far they say food can take you there and that knowing uh Gribble for instance food is
Run so if you say about blue I mean food run so I’m thinking I said maybe Dr Burrows may not be describing the interpretation exactly but it’s very close to food and running so I don’t know why people will be running there or if that or if that’s something that I
Myself making up I don’t know so it could so there’s a couple of things that sometimes words sound similar right and they’re not related just because bo means foot in a quiet language that word Bo also exists in mende languages meaning different things right yeah and so to just assume that
It’s quite I don’t think it’s you know and and also I I would I would uh with all due respect you know to Dr burles and I respect his research and he’s one of the sources I constantly cite on this program but the assumption that both world is far
Is strange because the quad people were not stagnant right so a lot of places were fired that they would go they were engaged in trade and networks and they would go far up the cavali river as far as Guinea you know so why was it all sudden is
Only Bobo is far it just doesn’t you know and also running you know this was a place where it was a center for bringing captives human captives to be then like a transshipment place they were being used for trans Savannah trade meaning they’re trading across the cycle in Savannah
West Africa these enslaved people and before that there were even being just dragged down to the coast in Caravans and sold into slavery to Europeans so there could be many hypotheses for that I don’t know the answer but those are different things to think about in Ponder thank thank you and our
Colleagues who are from Buffalo that’s a fan out yeah let’s say yeah I I know Mohamed Salia Salif um go ahead so so both rules is spelled this way by Benjamin Joseph nightings and we’ll see later how in 1871 so this is 1868 is the first time Anderson goes
There 1871 Every Woman bought it and goes there with some other librarian government officials they will get into some of those but he spells it Boku now benjamination yeah we all know that know that our sound is very our addiction as Africans West African so Momo rule we know that name is really
Pronounced just like we know the maninka name Kamala is spelled Kamara so modern modern West Africans say Kamara because we’ve been you know exposed to the letter R sound and because of the people who originally wrote this would spell it with an R we will say Kamara because Abu
Kamara okay Kamara but at the end of the day if you really really talk to a real malingus because they will say Kamala so they will not say Kamara or Kamara as we as we anglicize our speech or europeanize our speech but uh the the name Kamara is actually Kamala
And the usual residents of the king momorusang the king was at this time residing at a large town called miles Northeast of yes Benjamin yeah so it’s important um and total call that he’s mentioning this town and he’s saying this is where King mamuru actually lived so what we’re doing is we’re piecing
Together so bothalusa town where you know why did my mama who live in total color he built this town we didn’t find this out later and there’s going to be some more hints about who his mother is in that lineage um because Anderson described him as a
Mandingo in his words or meninka in in incorrect terms so did he inherit his ethnicity from his mother well he had to work because his father was a foreigner so his roots in this place his connection would be maternal and as we know traditionally we inherit our
Before we became Patriot you know before the whole nail dominated thing most of our ethnic groups inherit their ethnicity maternally and even to this day with all of the uh foreign influence even the manenga people to this day connect themselves to their mother’s Clan this is a Remnant from our true
West African traditions so it is not normal for Arabs to do this but it’s an African tradition that’s why you see Monica people will say oh I’m you know uh from the kava Clan they’re tracing their mother’s plan not their fathers interesting yeah and remember we always say ethnicity is
Fluid the fluidity of ethnicity the way we’re so obsessed with tribe today that was not the obsession of our ancestors people easily intermarried and cultures merged and had influence over each other either through conquest or agreement and Memorial is the son of both sin um became king
Was not a traditional King both Swain was not a traditional King he was a slave catcher he was a slave raider he was powerful because he had a military and probably married into this powerful family and there that’s why my son becomes king but both flame as we call him the king
Because yes he was a ruler but it was not a tradition meaning he did not inherit his power from his father or his mother he was a lowly slave death I mean slave ship worker he narrated his own history he spoke English he told people where he
Came from and what he did he called himself boatswain because that was his job title on the ship so this is not someone who Rose to be king because his father was King he rose to be king because he was a powerful military person yeah
And I don’t want to we don’t want to get into Bourgeois and South Boston we dealt with that already yeah so yes for the purpose of of clarity both Swain’s name was not salvosa that is a confusion and is some of the disinformation in life in history both Lane calls himself those
Who had never told anyone that his name was salvoso right and the two live in two different eras as we learned on the history yeah it must have been absolutely probably about 100 years apart right inconveniences and troubles frequently arise from this kind of relationship sensible of their numbers and strength
The slaves sometimes make a struggle for delivery in the latter part of 1566 at the depth of tosu okay so that’s supposed to be 1866. 1866 at the death of tosu Ki Uncle it became necessary to settle some debts pretend pretending I’m sorry this was transcribed so I apologize it’s
Supposed to be king momoru’s Uncle correct King Momo’s Uncle yes it became necessary to settle some debts pertaining to tosu’s Estates his relatives in order to pay off the claims attempted to sell some of his slaves these slaves were staying at a town called Musa Dallas Town Southwest of Buffalo
The attempt was resisted some blood was shared and the general reward took place in which all the slaves in the town determined to defend each other to the last extremity yes so there’s the full um I’ll put the link after the show in the comments for the full narrative but here’s
Essentially why this is here King Momo rule was part of a powerful slave holding family and it makes sense to why a powerful slave holding family would allow their daughter to become the wife of bothling because both Wayne was the middleman he was the one that would raid these towns
Bring these slaves provide slaves to these powerful meningo people swing would also sell slaves to the Kings on the coast the slave Traders on the coast to be able to be subsequently sold to Europeans so King Peter Brumley all of these slave traders that were on the coast where we
Seeing this is back before you know this is the late 1700s very early 1800s the the the network of slave trade both swing was a supplier extremely powerful supplier why did the maninka people need slaves or why did any of the the powerful traders of the the Savannah
Region of West Africa need slaves they needed slaves because that was a mode of transportation slaves is to carry salt and other Goods long distances to other parts of West Africa the people the the the the king Peter brumleys and others on the coast they also needed to be able to sell slaves
To their European trading partners we all know what happened with the transatlantic slave trade so King South Bozo or I’m sorry I said falbo is a good Lord King both flame roll was to supply slaves and how did he do so by Brute Force raiding towns and villages
And I normally was holding many of these slaves because he was a powerful and Rich long-distance Trader he had a network of trade so he needed his supplies to be carried as far away as modern day Gambia or Senegal how was this done through a caravan of human beings
Throwing things long distance portures so these slaves that revolted were going to be sold to one of his uncle’s debtors he was going to take some of his human property and sell them and they revolted they didn’t want to be sold it was terrifying because a lot of times if you’re sold
That partner could then send you on distances like across the Sahara you might not survive you know as opposed to you trading in the region you might be sent further off you might be used to do something else that’s even more detrimental like mining gold or doing something you know or iron
Things that would shorten your lifespan so they band together and at the end of the day they were and I’ll post a whole narrative in the in the the comments but Anderson says that basically had them all executed because for the Revolt so they were all eventually executed and some of the women
Um were taken by momoon’s Ally who was a Bondi uh a king and not Bondi King took some of the women as his property but the men and the the the the main woman who was the instigator were all executed Memorial yes so I can’t remember was extreme and this
Is extremely powerful very rich man you could have hounds whole towns of slaves it’s not a joke I mean that’s a lot of wealth and power an idea that someone that commanded that much power and it’s not really discussing like industry’s strange you know and this is this is
Um one of one of if not uh the most powerful team that existed at the time of the Liberian government’s existence there were powerful Kings before Liberia existed but this is a powerful King existing within the theoretical territory library that Library had no control over
Um but he was he was definitely the most powerful and commanded all of the Lesser Kings they were all beholden to him paid tariff and duties to him and many of the the Lesser Kings were his actual relatives just you know uh similar to the systems that they have in Europe
But many of these kings were his actual relatives sorry I arrived at Zulu on the 8th of July here it was that the Mandingo guy Bia according to the instructions that had been given to him by King memorial was to spend a couple of weeks in trying to reconcile the differences between the
Bonzis and the byline people Zulu was also the town belonging to the young chief who had covertly assisted the byline people and who was now suffering the penalty of his perfidy he was confined at salagi which is a lifestown so um basically I wanted to demonstrate
Here but this is also from Narrative of the journey to Musa um by Benjamin and Joseph Knight Anderson this is to kind of show you the power of kingdom um he was reconciling Grievances and he was settling conflicts and and helping to resolve Wars there’s a an account of Anderson explaining how
He would give salt which was a uh to both parties which is like a a way of coercing them into peace agreements a lot of these wars that were happening was a result of a shift in their traditional livelihood they’re no longer allowed to carry people in 1868 there was no more
Transatlantic slave trade so all of the slavery at this time in history is now just about portraits and the only people that needed slaves for very rich and powerful people who couldn’t you know conducting long-distance trade so you can’t sell human beings across the Atlantic you can only use them for trade
So if you’re not a powerful Trader your whole economic system has now shut down and so what’s happening they’re fighting Wars are looking for reasons to conquer people to be able to uh establish affordable dominance becomes a mediator he is doing things that the government of Liberia is not
Capable of doing which is uh resolving these these wars and conflicts and and helping to stabilize the region so this is extremely powerful this is something that the government like doing Anderson pointed out in the narrative was not able to do and that moment rule was basically in
Command and control of this entire region of territory that technically was supposed to be part of Liberia but like we had absolutely no control over it in addition to this murmuru also judged the case between Anderson who’s representing the government Authority in Liberia and one of the employees that are the guys
That was taking him around and kefa and and and and Anderson both had to sit and be judged have their case mediated and judged by mumuru that is how powerful he was so essentially when people would leave from the controlled portion of the library and territory and go into these areas
They were now under the laws Customs rule of the king not of Liberia so Anderson is being subjected to those laws in this narrative Moma rule is the judge Momo Ruiz who decides not not president um not not President Warner but Momo is who’s powerful in this area
This is very important because what’s a lot of times we get a very warped concept we say things like oh in 1868 you know we were invoku we’re not allowed to be librarian citizens you know you were citizens of boats you are the king your king is not going to say
Oh yeah go be librarian citizens and give up his power at this time there was no Berlin Conference left there was no reason for mumuru to become fully Liberian all right he was a sovereign his people were practicing their Customs nobody was in line you know or you know
Being denied citizenship of Liberia they were already citizens of both of them and they’re already part of a political system that’s very important right because you have a system a kingdom you know a place being ruled by Memorial and now we have people come into a place and
That they’ve named now Liberia so this these were like two different countries side by side what would you say that well there’s a yeah the two different countries side by side there’s this technical territory that like we had really no control didn’t even really know what was
Happening there and then the people were still so one of the things that confuses people reading history backwards as as uh many uh like to say is that they assume that there was no governmental systems in existence before the repatriated African-Americans arrived and they assume that it’s repatriated African-Americans that brought some
Concept of citizenship to this region and it’s clearly not true these people had citizenship of Their Own countries they belong to something already that existed so the only way you would make a statement like that is if you believe that these people had nothing and were waiting for someone to
Give them a country that is not what happened they conquered the coastal areas got rid of the slave Traders settled there set up a government there but in the hinterland of the country people were going about their very sophisticated complex lives you couldn’t easily get there right this
Is walking on foot there’s no boat to take you there there’s no boat to take you there you must March into the interior this is correct you must margins the interior and then cross waters on foot in you know Anderson marching the interior with with his uh with his employees from Monrovia
All the way to musado and passing to go through this is what he saw this is what he encountered and as he’s there clearly they have a leader they have a government better functional system exactly with its own justice system and its own set of laws and rules and Taxation and
Everything else that a a government in the country would have as soon as quite fast started for business town I resolved to pay my respects to King momoro I arrived at total College on May 7 1868. I was kindly received and advanced stated to the king that I would have been
I would have been to see him much sooner but that I was a stranger in his country and has supposed that he resided at his reputed Capital Buffalo that when I came to that town I was informed that he had gone elsewhere he replied that he was accustomed to
Divide his time between the two towns sometimes residing at Buffalo and sometimes staying at protocol I then informed him of the object of my visit and had to frame such an account of my former proceedings also showed that it had always been my intention to come to his country but I had been
Thwarted by many on towards circumstances this is the narrative our journey to Musa by Benjamin JK Anderson yes foreign so again total color which is uh spelled t-o-t-o-k-o-l-e I believe today uh is located is still there and they’re saying moment saw Built This City built this city this town for himself and erson
Both Wayne’s son Memorial Anderson remember called him momarusan not sun is in the English word but son being some kind of um indigenous words so when Memorial son is not meaning son of both swing it’s just it’s an indigenous word just let them know yoka
And so anyway so this is this is very interesting it’s basically talking about um he was he had to go and pay and allow the king to know that he was in his territory he had to he’s representing the president the government of Liberia he’s
Like an ambassador he has to go and let the king know of his presence the reason I’m emphasizing this is because liberians think incorrectly that the government of Liberia was somehow going into these areas and you know beating their chest as if these people had no government no system
You’re representing Liberia if these people were so oppressed why would you be looking for the king to say hey chief in your area I need your protection I’m trying to go to musado why would the king be judging cases between any conflicts that arise between Anderson and anyone he encountered which
Is what happens this is this is what it was this idea that these people were some kind of you know naked Savages running around without a country without a government without power it’s not it’s not supported in historical texts so he had to inform the king of the
Object of his visit that means that they’re looking at these people as their equals there is nowhere in any European you know Conquest that you will see that happening so I just wanted to point that out yeah and he recognized that that I’m in your country yeah
And so yeah being somebody this country if the person doesn’t have citizenship of their own country it’s like you we can’t have it both ways we have to really think about the narrative that has been fed to many of us for so long and ask ourselves does it make sense now
This this excerpt is now from uh this is from November 1871 Professor Edward Wilmot blyden he had a a paper that he published in many uh newspapers a report that he published in many newspapers around the world in November of 1871 uh it’s called The Bull Home Country it wasn’t a description of
What he saw when he went there with the Liberian government delegation in the year 1871. so this is four years after Anderson goes there and now blyden Dr blyden was once president of the of Library College which is the predecessary Dr Biden is now writing about his encounter go ahead please
Garden right polygamy is the general practice of Africa has a most Oriental countries Memorial like the Sultan of turkey and the visceral of Egypt has his Harem and numerous wives so I want you to pause right there please so we have talked about in the show this borrowed
Idea this Asiatic cultural tendency of uh male-dominated societies where you have harems blyden in 1871 is alluding to this as well he’s saying this is basically what is exists in most Oriental countries and he’s comparing this to what you see in places like turkey among these
Uh the Turks and among Arabs who are the you know this is the 1800s so the agent is now dominated by Arab culture so this is an ancient Egypt this is Arab culture he’s describing here and at this his time which is similar to Modern Egypt which is dominated by Arab Muslims he’s
Describing this practice as coming from this area go ahead please hmm he said but he remarked that he remarked to us that his wife palava was a great humble to the country as it was the occasion of a great outlay of money to keep up such extensive establishments
He said that he did not know half of his wives he knew that he had over 300 but his seldom saw more than half a dozen though he was obliged to support them all that as they were mostly the daughters of powerful Chiefs he dared not divorce them without sufficient reason
He said however that he would like to see the practice discontinued but it could not be done by himself his children might be able to affect such a revolution the girls he added must be educated think about this I mean this is 1871. this is a man who owns human beings this
Is one he has all of these powerful blind uses the word Chiefs and we kind of talked about that right Chief a ruler a king a lesser King than himself and maybe equal Kings to himself in other regions are saying oh this guy’s rich and Powerful he’ll take my daughter
As your wife that helps trade relationships if you have a wife who’s from this region that you are feeding and taking care of presumably presumably having children with or at least one childhood she’s probably having many children with other men but whatever the case she’s she’s she’s
Presumably your wife and any child that she has is yours whether you’ve met her or not so here he is making these alliances through these women as boatswain did through his mother and he’s responsible for them but he’s saying he doesn’t like the practice he wish he would stop doing it he’s
Acknowledging that this is not you know because it’s probably not even in his era normal it’s something that was borrowed from these Arab people so he’s now saying you know what the girl should be educated this is everyone blyden 1871 quoting this man is saying these girls should be
Educated now Memorial spoke English she spoke English well himself was that was semi-literate so he wasn’t an illiterate being a sense and he also read and wrote Arabic well so he spoke English he could read and write some English read and wrote Arabic extremely well and this is this is powerful he’s saying
At this point in history that girl should be educated I mean we have incidences in the 1960s where we have people saying they’re not sending the girls to school and here’s this man this very wise man you know thinking way into the future this is remarkable it is
He has like 300 see I don’t even know half of them yeah they say you only really interacts with six yeah half a dozen so you know the rest of them whatever children they have they’re still his children he’s still responsible they’re still walking around saying I’m a room
Son I’m King Mama Ruth’s child so very important because married women Even in our tradition cannot have that’s a child even if they’ve never met their husband if you just of Buffalo wool of an excellent quality abounds informed us that a few months ago a wealthy Chief about a week’s Journey
Distance sent him to a very fine ship cover with luxuryant wood with the message that if momolu ordered him he could furnish any number of such sheep the king says he took great care of the ship to see if it would live and Thrive but none with
Standing all his care he died after a few weeks he showed us fine Woolen cloth manufacturer in the interior and presented me with the skin of a sheep since my arrival in town the wool has been pronounced of frustrate quality and so he’s just this is again Professor
Dr blyden getting into the details here he’s talking about um Dr Edward will not blyden is talking about the the Commerce it’s another example how incredibly wealthy industrious and Powerful Kingdom Rewards he’s a cardiac cotton not only is he farming cotton he also is manufacturing Woolen cloth right manufactured in his kingdom
And it’s of the finest quality these are some of the things that they’re Trading long distance in addition to salt and gold and other things this is this is this is a man who had gold mines he had cotton plantations he was manufacturing things we know that he was trading iron bars he
Was trading salt so he was extremely wealthy I mean only a person of extreme wealth would be able to keep up that number of Lies and many of the the the the Lesser Kings in his territory which was massive were his relatives or his extended family members so this is a photo
Um of a bridge in Wolverine um this isn’t really that old this is from you know I think the 19th late 1960s it’s it’s just a photo of a monkey bridge but these are the kinds of bridges that Dr blyden and his colleagues had to cross
The other thing I want to mention is King momaroon and the Liberian delegation walked nobody carried them in Hammock lyden’s gonna get into that because walking was a sign of power you walk in front of you is your procession with the music and sometimes the cow horn blowing in front and you
Have your military behind you and you are walking to show force and Power the concept of caring Kings in a hammock it’s something you do if someone is sick in our culture it is not something I know you see all these illustrations and it’s all in Ghana to carry the people
Where they got it from where they got the idea that people should carry them from because when you study in our region how these Kings behave walking marching because these things had to show strength they were strong it was much later when you have these uh government-appointed proxy Chiefs
That they start saying oh I will jump in the hammock like the missionaries but here all of these people across these bridges on foot they marched along with their Porters they marched along with their military they marched with the procession of musicians of insurance announcing that they were passing through it
Unless you have a question a few days after our arrival at Buffalo the king invited us to accompany him to his half town about eight months east of bukuru early on the money of January 4th inside sorry so I wanted I wanted to to point something out so Anderson
Spelled total called Cola differently and Dr blyden is spelling it total correct remember they’re just sounding out these words right today this place is spelled t-o as we say okay so it’s the same town that Anderson referenced that King memory lives in it’s just fell differently yeah so I
Want everybody to be clear on that thank you early on the money or general fourth he sent us word that he will be ready to start for the set half down immediately after breakfast we are currently prepared ourselves and we’re ready at the time designated the
King set out attended by a long train of Warriors and servants in the company was the famous Far Cry with his Revenue the king with his librarian guests on each side walked in front of the procession on the way we passed through several Villages and one finally barricaded town
The Kings approached to each town of Village was announced by the firing of guns on the part of the inhabitants and at the entrance he was always met by a band of singers and dancers with instrumental music who escorted him to a prominent seat in an open space
So as to allow all the people to see him Dr blyden still writing yeah so 1871 again this is the same except for that report so again he’s emphasizing uh how powerful this man was he marched in front of the procession of his military of his forges with the
Liberians on each side of him he’s showing the liberians also how powerful he is and as he comes into these towns everyone is all the king praise singing as we’d like to see right everybody is coming oh The King The King The King and this is powerful
I mean I when I when I read these things I imagine in my mind it plays out for me like a movie you know very powerful so imagine that kind of procession I remember we had these these roles passing through the interior that were very wide brushed you know by
Whoever was in charge of that area they would have their people in Russia to keep the road open and passable you know for not only just the king but for anyone who was coming through so when we talk about walking to these places people gotta know they’re not walking
And chopping Bush as they’re walking these are very wide roads that people can pass through with processions horses can pass here yeah a lot of these meningo King has had horses but in this particular case he was marching with his procession they can transport what they call
Bullock at the time which are cows Ox down these roads so you’re the only you know you cross water either by these the monkey bridges that I demonstrated or by um barges and canoes they built their own you know rafts or barges to push things across or they would use canoes
They were able to cross the waters they were able to move through these areas so this idea that you know Boku means the place that you have to you know your feet can’t reach or expire for going it’s like I mean these people are traveling vast distances
All these people not only the people the many ethnic groups but also even though the people in the in the um crew language families people were also trading maybe not as far but they would definitely trading further than bothuru is from the the place of origin
And then we also have to point out that Boku also has some of the oldest ethnic people there are also related to the cloud speaking people which are The Bella so it may be one of their words as well hmm so today we see the distance from
Buffalo to Total College yeah so if you remember um in the previous slide he said it was about eight miles so this the yellow lines represent the foot path that they would have taken now it says 7.6 miles but I started it in the middle of town
Right I started in the middle of town so maybe it’s a little bit you know I started the journey in the center maybe they started a little off the center of why it was about eight miles or 7.61 is still about eight miles right right so
This is the path that they they would have taken but on foot to get to the next town marching with the procession to get from both blue total College which was a largely fortified town now the other thing that is important is this town had a massive wall around it in fact
All of these major towns had these defense walls built around them this is the case with with Zozo this is the case with many many of these towns in the region so in in what is now considered low for what is not considered vocal what is not
Considered Grand Cave law what is not considered nimba these towns had massive walls built around us you might ask what happened to the walls we’ll explain that before we finish the show as well next slide please right and even there was I don’t think we have
These walls in the South Eastern side of the country what is unique about that knob that have walls because they had we we talked about this when we’re talking about the uh cultural difference right you have centralized Authority it’s a different culture whereas in the Southeast it was more of
You know Town based uh autonomous towns rule by one ruler and that ruler was a power onto himself it didn’t have to pay taxes to some other ruler which is one of the reasons they were so belligerent I Berlin Conference you gotta be etle Freedom what are you talking about you
Know so that’s some of the reasons for for some of that concert too but the people in the Western and Northern Central regions were more accustomed to strong central authorities which is why you don’t have the same level of resistance to to the corporation um they did resist colonialism though terribly
For the longest period of time uh in in these regions so culturally they’re used to powerful King figures that rule over vast areas and and other kings that are responsible to pay tribute to this bigger stronger King after exchanging salutations with the principal men the king will inquire through his
Spokesman the news in the village the presiding head man then stepped forward and walked around the square talking all the while telling the news after which the principal woman will come out and haven’t danced gracefully before they came will come forward and shake his hand making at the same time a
Very low bow again these are these are the prints for women prints for women what does that mean it means he’s a powerful woman these are the women who have who command power so they would dance and then they would come and they would bow to the king the gesture of respect
Incredible you know he’s Biden and and delegation and witnessing this button wow you know these powerful rich women and here they are dancing to welcome him and bowing as you know what you call them very low bow um and then he’s gonna in the next slide describe how he felt when he witnessed
This let’s see how you feel I was wrong with the great difference difference and respect paid by these people to their rulers a point in which liberians will do well to follow the example all right okay but they have the advantage of us in never having been on a foreign Masters
In never having invite a sense of inferiority or a feeling of self-depreciation they have never had to look up to white men for anything so has to form in their minds comparisons between themselves and others disparaging to themselves they are entirely free from the mentor and moral trip troubles which the Church
Of the Caucasian has imposed on us and they are alive from the operation of a great many other nameless influences which clock our progress in the Mars to Independence and self-reliance very powerful wow well Biden had the utmost respect for the people in this region even Daniel Bashir Warner who is the
President that sent Benjamin JK Anderson and even president um uh uh James speaks Payne who later sent to Emerson again these people in in uh um Warner’s words there are Noble in one of his annual addresses there are noble men in these forests he said there are noble men in these forests who
Said There are basically royalty there’s royalty in this Forest meaning there are people in these forests that can help make Liberia greater let us approach them let them join with us and become one with us this was the reason for the government exerting all of this diplomatic interaction
With the people of this region at this time and we know things will change later because we did the presidential series but we’re talking about this period in time this was a reverence and respect that was held for the people of this region and their economic strength they felt if
We United you even go when we talked about Jane uh uh EJ Roy wanted to when he reasoned right you know God even thought about taking out a loan was because he wanted to build a railroad straight into the interior to help aid Commerce in 1871.
This was all happening when E.J Roy had just become a new president so Biden is there under President Wright with the short-lived presidency the first president of the true word party trying to build railroads into the interior so that they can have ease of Commerce so that they don’t have to use
Human Chapel to bring people to the coast so King momaru can free his slaves bring much more Goods more efficiently with this railroad this would have made West Africa an incredible economic Force had it been successful because this would have been an example of West Africans utilizing their own resources
For their own benefits but as we know after Roy in in the 1880s you have the Berlin Conference and this is no longer possible but at that time this is what they were looking at this was the mindset like hey we’ve got all of this wealth we’ve got
All this power we’ve got all these brilliant people we can do anything and blyden is saying hey why are influence with these Europeans is what has got us we we can learn from these people we can build and we can be powerful and that was the whole thing
You can all you know let’s but as we know you know what happened we know how this ended but at the time what a powerful mindset what a powerful understanding of of the world that many don’t have today don’t even get it right but at one point in history we were on
The right path so that thing that’s saying this oh it says 1847 they don’t know what they’re talking about they don’t know what was happening in 1871. they had they don’t know what’s happening in 1847. it’s a confusion because you know of History a complete misunderstanding of what what transpired
Yeah I think it was Michael Blackson you say I didn’t know I was black until I came to America right so I like what Bladen said that uh these people they don’t have that um Caucasian influence so they don’t they can compare their themselves to any other people that’s
Why they feel so proud and no season in reality yeah but Michael Blackson was talking about his dark skin not about being black he knew he was black Michael Blackson was born in the 20th century he knew he was black he was at my right
Skin tone how dark he was he knew he was black meaning you know that he was abnormally dark until he came to America right because he compared that to something right he saw something like that in Ghana everybody was very black right yeah he talked to America most of
The black people are not as dark as Danny’s that’s true you have to compare to this show yeah I don’t know if that I’m just saying I don’t know if that’s analogous of this because this is talking about Caucasian influence which clearly Michael Blackson had growing up and I’m
Not talking about I’m just saying if you if you are all the same in your area you don’t feel you don’t feel different so these people they were black people they didn’t so no interaction with the uh but I think it’s deeper than that Dennis I think what he’s saying is not about
Because you can be in Africa and be always all around hurricanes we still have an inferiority conflict because of the condition in your education right because of because of influence from somebody but if you don’t have that influence so what I’m saying is I don’t really see
Much of an example of that in West Africa in the 20th century that’s I’m just saying that Michael Blackson common is in real world off because this is Michael Blackson is clearly westernized right and so he has he has this you know the same upbringing as everybody else in
West Africa in this case he’s talking about people who do not have the influence at all and so they’re not even the concepts their understanding of themselves does not come from the place that Michael Blackson understanding of himself comes from their concepts of themselves is built by themselves
They created their own world view their own paradigm they’re not operating under someone else’s worldview in paradigm that’s powerful they are self-determined sovereign beings not only Sovereign physically but Sovereign psychologically mentally and culturally and this is profound okay the same Market Bridge again I love the monkey bridge and the
Reason I keep showing this buggy Bridge because I’m just thinking my God crossing the bucket Bridge with a whole procession of people I mean did you said y’all wait I’m gonna go one at a time I don’t really know but anyway sorry so this continues Glide in the next slide
The town of Toto Korea built by mumuru for his own residence before he came to the throne is beautifully situated at the southern base of a very high hill it is surrounded by a barricade impractical to any native Force Upon This Town the King has spent a
Great deal of time and labor in building it up and adorning it the houses are of the same character as those at boporo the streets however are much wider and not so winding as in the capital the Public Square is also larger and in better order
Here as I have stated above the King has for his own residence a two-story frame building furnished in American Style this this is for me it you know this man’s father spent most of his life around British people and on the polls interacting with Americans when they finally arrived right and
You haven’t been interacting with other westerners all his life both went his son has a two-story house his son momaru would have been the I mean clearly he learned to speak English by being in territory of Liberia probably learned a little bit of literacy he had also from
There as well because if you remember there were all of these schools not all of these schools there were a few schools in in the in the early and 1800s between in fact from when lot Kerry arrived all the way up until uh chemo movie would have
Returned to both group set up for Native children and we also know that many of those native children that went to those first schools were maninka Basa Dave Gola Vai and some Talent so many of these people had some level of endless you know English and literacy
And so he must have liked the wood frame homes that he saw these people building like oh I will have this house also for myself I thought that was really interesting so here’s King momaru they know I saw the big shots in the world with this house I want one
Or maybe the one in the west they saw it with this all came a little house and they tried to build their own there’s no that’s not the way it happened because these homes are far older than kingdom and also it would have been replicated
All over both if that was the origin of it but I think I I like this because I had somebody say one time oh you know the native people used to Envy our homes why didn’t you go build it on a two-story house and why didn’t
Build it on a wood frame house it was still building up north some people did go build a Woods right now so that’s where they wanted and people didn’t want that so people if they wanted to killed it so this idea that you know people couldn’t do things for themselves when
Actually a lot of the construction you know later on of these towns and cities were done by these same people if they wanted to go and replicated they could have but not everybody wanted to live like that people liked themselves people had a sense of their own worldview not everyone wanted to imitate
This very foreign and odd culture not everyone wanted to do that extra rich guy 300 wives for your respect and even the idea that he had this concept that women should be educated I thought was so profound um so this this I don’t know if you
Wonder if you could blow this up any bigger maybe get rid of us so they can see the full screen but I want you to see the scale this is a so you were asking about these walls this is a remnant of the wall as yours or this picture was taken in 1947
1947 okay it says remnants of the wall at ZaZa and you see the the men standing and remember these people is also they’re not short peoples I thought people talk you know they talk tall like like Richmond and you know these are those people so you say uh um no but typically
Typically these are some of the taller people in the Republican Library some of the tallest you see how they stand in scale to this wall and look how thick this wall is way 1947. the walls crumbling this also doesn’t have a wall anymore but in 1947 look how thick this wall was
And I always you know I used to read these things you know years ago I said but when Anderson’s describing every time he goes he has his massive wall defense wall and I haven’t seen this photo yet I hadn’t I would imagine like they had these massive walls well they
Built up that we don’t see them anymore why were they around in the 1600s the 1700s the 1800s but in our room in the late 1900s in around 2000s what happened to the walls he has evidence that there were still I mean the ruins of the wall but it was
Huge it looks like people were even chipping away at the wall to you know use the the material to rebuild something like how they can do with uh uh right you can chip it away and re-constitute it and build something so some of this erosion is human activity
Okay they no longer needed the defense walls in 1947 was also defending itself against there’s no need for defense walls any longer because 1947 there’s no more you know need for for this massive defense while nobody can carry you and making slave you know and nobody come and carry you may be a
Slave in you know portal to be carrying things across the Sahara Desert or anywhere else for that matter so there’s no need to really protect towns like this anymore because this is behavior had been stomped out for the most part about 1947. so what happens in the walls what do you
Think happens to wall students well I believe it’s just uh God it got eroded just by being there for so long and it Collapse by itself that’s not what happened to the walls because the thing is some of these walls are from the 1600s so how could they
Just collapse from 1947 look at how thick that thing is how could that Collapse by itself from 1947 to 1990 or 2000 it doesn’t seem possible that did most of this well especially the part not the word of men are standing but look at to the side how
Smooth and correct it is yeah well I figured out what happened to all of these fortified towns all over Liberia I figured out what happened to these walls well somebody did this next slide please sir we’re gonna we’ll get to it at the very end but I just want to put that what
Happened to the walls in the back of your head so what happened total color was headed by far farqua described as belligerent Chieftain whose wall-like operations spread Terror through the Gola country he was a man about five feet seven inches high inclined to copulans he had a large head and neck prominent
Forehead lies full eyes light scatter whiskers he was rapid in his utterance with never movement of hands and feet and apparent Restless temperament he was the first cousin to King momolu as they were the children of Two Sisters was also related to them so you have
A name that sounds very Pele you’ve got VI Gola mandinka oh and the same family ethnicity is fluid very fluid you are having women marrying powerful men didn’t matter what their ethnic group was this is not hyper tribalism this is cohesiveness the fluidity of ethnicity especially among the many ethnic groups is real
People were constantly engineering you might consider yourself maninka today to go back a few generations and repellent you go back a few Generations you might consider yourself blinding today you go back a few Generations you were PC you go back a few Generations you are something else you were bad so
These people that we like to think are some stagnant ethnic group that’s my tribe this is who I am I’m this tribe it is definitely not biology it is about culture and culture is something that can change even within your lifetime and it can change from one generation to another through intermarriage through
Interaction through adoption through Conquest to train ethnicity is fluid and also maninka is a for was and still is a trade language in our region and so you didn’t have to be manika to speak it you buy was also a secondary trade language you didn’t have to be by to speak it
The same way English is a global trade language today you don’t have to be English to speak it this is how it is so play that comparison Falcon expressed himself has been healthily tired of War and angels for the establishment of Peace in the country that trade and other improvements might go forward
He resided when young for some time in Monrovia where he acquired a knowledge of English which he speaks with ease and fluency he is anxious to have schools established at sunblock his place of residents near the coast about a day’s walk Northeast of Monrovia as a proof of
His earnestness and pledge of a specific intentions he gave two of his songs to Mr N.A Richardson to be brought up and instructed by him and promised soon to send his eldest son to be prepared for admission at library colors four years is violence yeah the lighting you know he’s the president
Of the University like broad Biden was a teacher Professor there recruiting people to come to school um and University library and a lot of times when he reached that level even though I think this is a pillow name even though he went to school in Monrovia
When he was young and spoke English well as gladly explained he didn’t go to university but here he’s like yeah I want my children to go further in school than I did I want them to go to university so not everyone who went to school became
Liberian a lot of them went to school and went because the idea a lot of these Kings would we discussed this when we talked about about basketball his father wanted him to go to school and come back to them that’s what he decided to stay he can’t change his religion he became a
Christian same thing happened with Gardner Bishop Gardner right the first African Bishop what did he do he he his father was a Muslim King he went to the Christian School he converted to Christianity and and Rose to the level of a bishop he didn’t go home or however you pronounce his name went
Back to his people with his education so not everybody that went to school and all these schools were Christians don’t be confused by that all of them were Christian at this time in history not everybody adopted the Christian faith they one day they learned it
Looked at us nice and it went back to their lives I haven’t learned how to read and write why did they need to do that so that they could trade with the Christians with the English speakers on the coast you’re going to be powerful one day you’re going to learn Arabic and then
Now the new thing to learn was English so that you could you could conduct trade and diplomacy and everything else this man wasn’t going to be able to talk to blyden blyden did speak Arabic but he wouldn’t even speak to Biden in his own language had he not gone to school and
So this was the reason they were all pumping the children go to school and we always joke we say this is a lot of the way a lot of people became Congo they were the children of these people that went to school they never went back
Adopted western names and that was it so it didn’t only happen in Maryland it didn’t only happen in Sino it also happened in what is now Boku and lofa in in other places and came on of course we know James J Dawson’s parents were educated this way
And became Christian and they gave birth to their son in uh Maryland where they had been sent to the evangelists and teachers those and roles would be Chief uh Justice of the Supreme Court and Vice President of the Republic of Liberia right and and that’s why you should
You know see why I want to go back to be the superintendent of Sino my dream job in several conversations which I had with Far Cry about his walls I could not help noticing that his Arguments for carrying them on were precisely those used by men who aspire to military distinctions elsewhere
We are sometimes disposed to pass wholesale and indiscriminate condemnation upon the natives on account of their war-like operations we then say that they ought to see that it is brunions to their country and we became impatient and anxious to carry Expeditions among them to chastise them for their belligerent tendencies
So here he’s saying he’s not Sublime you know Glidden I don’t know gliding is one of my favorite liberians in history He called himself a Liberian even when he was in Sierra Leone he still calls himself a Liberian in Exile very important blind love Liberia he died in Sierra Leone for reasons we’ll get into when we cover Biden’s story so he’s here he’s saying to us he was
Anxious I mean that we anxiously carry out this Expeditions we go all these people they’re killing one another while y’all killing each other but I’m killing each other but you also have this going on in Europe Ottoman Empire the Turks the this that other group this other group fighting
This other group I mean this and the reasons for their Wars are the same he’s saying yeah so so he’s now asking him why are you fighting and when the man explained the reasons they were rational Biden could relate to the reason so what this makes sense
You’re not just running around with the blood lust to just killing discriminately you’re fighting for resources you’re fighting for land for Domination there is a reason the same reason everybody else fights for they’re not just fighting War because they like to kill people and take women as hostages they’re fighting because they want
Dominance so you’re not talking about this this noble savage I didn’t know anything on yesterday around complex sophisticated societies should be very knowledgeable to really translate in trans and actually put forth what why he was fighting I mean I can just imagine him explaining and making sense because
And he was very fluent in English very soon the wall of those are yes oh this is the wrong slide I didn’t send you the one where they were breaking the wall shoot okay so this is where I was gonna end if I send you the slide while we’re talking can
You still pull it up or is it too late yeah I can put it up okay so at this time let me uh put on our number to call why you send me thank you okay if you want to join the conversation please call 605-313-6004 the code is
791-403 pound our topic team memory of Buffalo that’s the topic and uh so you want to join the conversation please call the line and your yes and you’ll be a login also want to mention that uh tomorrow at 7 30 pm would be tough talking Thursday and we’ll have the uh United party
Policy and program Guy Mr Roland L Giddings is Going to Be Our Guest and we’re going to talk tough on the United Property 2023 well uh also the standard Barrel has been speaking lately he said if this happens the country you know like Liberia that’s
Going to be the end of it what does it mean Mr Giddings will be talking tough about that tomorrow then on Friday the on the hour of politics Mr as soon as he had the political Bulldog will be sitting down with the executive director of Sentara Liberia that’s Mr Anderson
Miami and they’re going to be discussing the role of Civil Society in our electoral process you don’t want to miss it on the same day Friday July that’s the union of labrin associations in the Americas they just entered their convention and it was in total chaos elections that were planned did not take
Place and there is fighting between the executive and the ball we spoke with the president or the executive the administration now we have our chance to speak to the board what’s going on you don’t want to miss that only our politics that’s Friday at 4 pm Eastern
Right here on focus on Liberia where we educate we Elevate and promote all things Liberia yes no so I just sent you the email okay with the photo so I’ll tell you so basically this is the only photo that um we have that shows the destruction of the wall so in the
1930s 40s and 50s all of these walls were systematically destroyed intentionally not done just how the French had gone in when it conquered some order to read one of the things they did was destroy all the mosques burn all the manuscripts either burn them or take them and hide
Them off in some museums somewhere where nobody could see it was to diminish the level of sophistication and organization of the people who they said could not govern themselves I know countries had no government the Savages that they tried to paint these people to be could not be these Savages if if
They were able to have these complex complicated systems networks of power kingdoms with lesser Kings multi-ethnic Imperial istic systems so these are these are essentially Empires these are not these are not just little village towns these are large Networks so here’s a photograph of them digging to remove
These walls all over our region there’s not a single wall standing so these were intentional they forced them to remove and erase their history our history these are the direct ancestors of the majority of the population of Liberia come from this region this would region would con include Cape
Mall I’m going to leave Sierra Leone and guinea out of this and only focus on the territory that we consider like we were today Kate mom loafa we put a population of those five places together that’s a lot of people that either one parent or both parents come from these areas
These are the ancestors of you know many Librarians don’t have any clue of this this is not an accident this was not because these things were eyesores everywhere else in the world what do they do they keep these things as monuments to history places that can take children School
Groups and teach them about their past but what’s happening in the 1940s and 50s in Liberia during the Tubman era you’ve got usaid and all these people coming in and always got to get really erase all this stuff they’re writing our textbooks they’re rewriting our own history they’re erasing our history and
Replacing it with the hogwash children don’t learn a lot every Walmart light in school or just Benjamin Joseph Knight Anderson they don’t learn about King mamaru in school what they’re learning in school was boatswain and then they make stuff up both swings name was really salvoso or they call
They call King Peter Brumley who called himself in Peter Bromley zolma and Zola was Peter careful from Kate mom but they confused everything because it’s not important you don’t need to know anything about yourself we’ll just give you whatever swallow it and move on
Came on the road is one of the most in fact the most the most powerful you know the word indigenous is controversial but he was an indigenous Liberian the most powerful person at the time in the region commanded more territory arguably than the president of Liberia we co-existed with
His descendants are Liberian today we don’t talk about it why he should be known we should have came on the moon Street not King elbowso Street foreign can always be explained and talked about and people know about your move they won’t be calling my [ __ ] people
Foreigners why I mean you could be model and be a foreigner you can be grateful and be a foreign but my point is there’s been a presence of Malika people in Liberia very powerful for a very long time that needs to be taught in school the fluidity of our ethnic groups needs
To be taught in school so so who did this who actually broke down the Walls so as I said during the time that these walls are being this is not a natural this picture is um of a wall being destroyed by the French actually in what is now Guinea but this
Is the way in a systematic way that they all collaborated to break these walls down in Guinea in Liberia in Syria because as we said we’re not colonized so it was not British it was not French it was Americans as you know in 1940s and 50s after 1944 45 46 is when he
Rewrote his reality what I just said you had oh maybe not I didn’t say it I said it uh in passing though focus on it during the southern era this is the era where you have the white washing of the Liberian presidents they painted even DJ Roy to look mulatto in
Textbooks this is an era where they are destroying a lot of these historical sites this is also an era of extreme routine you had a lot of these Educators usaid and along with the American missionaries coming in and literally stealing and looting artifacts in Gaza you have guns and methods you
Had Dr Harland at this exact same time commissioning the destruction of walls and taking very old very old artifacts out of Liberia because those artifacts are all over there at the Brooklyn Museum they’re all over some of them are being sold on the internet things that date back to the 16 1700s
That he took with him and they’re being auctioned off for millions of dollars why would missionaries in usaid people all coordinate to destroy walls what were the walls doing why wouldn’t you say hey now we have small remnants of the yellow wall still I mean like
It’s a small small remnant of the wall of yellow and now you see like you’ve been trying to say oh the yellow walls are are a tourist attraction well it isn’t even as big as this piece that being removed if you go to the walls of yalas is sad
That was all that’s left in all of Liberia when most of these towns were fortified with walls including which is ganta what happened to the walls this is your answer they were considered bad they were considered bad you have to make way for westernization there’s
Nothing in the past for you to look back to your ancestors did nothing you can’t convince people of that when there’s Testament to what they did so that concludes our I think this recession thank you ladies and gentlemen the walls what happened to them as we’re learning tonight they were destroying this was
Systematic this was intentional this was deliberate and today we still grapple with that has to uh you know I told someone I said one reason we destroyed our country because we didn’t think there was much anything to protect because all you’ve been told is there’s nothing there now people younger people from the
Younger generation they say oh this is there’s nothing there since 1847 in fact right there was and even when I was there in like dude what we saw when we went to school someone would tell you there was nothing there so we can we can get it wrong if we destroy things
We so we can just destroy it because nothing there we didn’t even have people that we could emulate we we we say oh we didn’t have people that we could rally around National figures yes as we’re saying Library those people were there they are there
And that’s what we do here at focus on LeBron History Channel this is the only place where you learn authentic labrant history on adulterated so please tune in every Wednesday at eight o’clock for the library History Channel call your closing I don’t think we have any color tonight yeah it
Doesn’t seem so so I want to thank you and I’ve never seen Elvis for a while uh instead of all political commentary shows I want to thank everyone for watching um this is uh something that we are trying to bring to um our like we were a Leadership Academy
Which is a mentorship program um opening up for younger liberians to help supplement their education uh if you are interested in participating or supporting our mentorship program and we’re going to educate Librarians about Civics through history their constitution all of these things please reach out to me or Dennis job on Facebook
Um or to fol and get the information um it is not this is basically as much as providing a young person with data so they can tune into the zoom classes and you can reach out and self-sponsor a young person if you want you can do it
Through the program if you want to once you do and the person that you’re able to provide them with the data that they need to be able to join the class let us know and we will get them registered at absolutely no cost to them is a free
Service to our community and our country so for more information please reach out about the library Leadership Academy it is a mentorship program helping to supplement the education of young liberians so that they can get more information about themselves and have the full picture of their history look and carry
That dignity for as they innovate the future thank you so much thank you and so if you’re watching please uh you can drop us a line any support anything you have for the Academy please do so so that uh we can pass all this on to the next Generation Carl was telling me
Something we’re talking about this Academy say we are teaching ethics yes ethics it remember there was a police guy the story I was told you know as a was collecting money because they have their pockets so deep and so they were they were asking so they saw him they said think about the
Ethics of the police what you’re doing is wrong and you know why you told them he said when I go home that acted my children will eat this is very important is it when I get home now they can’t meet me Papa I will give them ethics
So yeah I see one of the comments he says I’m interested but I’m in Australia um so if you’re interested in participating in the library Leadership Academy you can do it from anywhere that has internet the reason I’m talking about Liberia is because it really is focused on like
Doing young people but anyone can attend class participate and again you know um what we really want to do is to provide librarian young people with the tools so that they can participate because we know that a lot of the young people they’re not going to spend money
On data only looking for food that you’re trying to pay their school fees but if they can have free access you know through your health that’s great that’s even better and one of the other ideas we had was for um audio visual equipment if we can get
A space a projector and you know someone with a laptop to invite people to a bigger room and project that for a group of students at the University of Liberia or um you were one of those schools or all of those schools uh for the Saturday
Course it would be great so we have a lot of those plans in the work trying to get support to make that possible um or even just you know sharing this focus on Liberia History Channel episodes to various people if you can at least do that I mean that
Would have powerful impacts as well so I I just I just want people to know that the students that we have been mentoring Dennis have made such an incredible progress with the level of understanding that they have and the most important thing that I see coming out of the leadership
Academy and the students learning so much about themselves is they have a sense of Duty and dignity that they they themselves would tell you they didn’t really have before they looked at being like doing as a curse now they look at being Liberian as an inspiration meaning hey we have a torch
To there to carry forward it’s a freedom torch it’s a sovereignty torch it’s a self-determination torch it’s a Prosperity torch and even in our current broken state we can still rise to higher Heights we can do better than this better has been done before better can
Do be done again and we can do more than even those who came before us and so the state of of of a substandard conduct of incompetence of gross negligence is not Who We Are and when you can show it to them with primary source documents they can
Show them the roles and responsibilities of their leaders but teaching them their constitution these young people will start to think differently this is where the change happens the Renaissance happens in your mind you need Renaissance not revolution revolution news nothing without a Renaissance if your mind hasn’t changed
Or just keep having a revolution or repeating the same thing the person you overthrew did and they will have to be overthrown why we keep having a secession of leaders you know we sing their praises and then we condemn them you know when they crucified Hosea today crucified him tomorrow
That’s happened because we’re revolution-minded and not Renaissance Minds what we need is a rebirth and that comes by remembering remembering we got a call on the line I think okay Eric uh Evan doesn’t want to be told I know so go ahead of this [ __ ] let’s get in the show
I can’t really want a good ideas is to immortalize these people in our history you know some other people uh is also on the platform and all the great people like that this is the history and then put them into our curriculums so like people said we can
Have people to look up to foreign hard drive right an external drive so we have the show on YouTube the library History Channel for instance and we put them into a playlist so this playlist you were able to uh you you’re able to go on our playlist
And select a show and download all that on something like this so let me show you just quickly before we leave so all our shows on YouTube are arranged into playlists so you can go down to this playlist there’s one on a spotlight hello Pastor
Round table if you go at a bottom you see the library History Channel playlist so right now of this playlist we have how many videos there we have all these videos on the playlist you can take all of them and put them on something like this
A memory stick or an external hard drive something like this and send them and keep it or send them to somebody in Liberia said you know people most of the time talk about book yes we’ll write a book where you have all these videos you can put them
Someone told me say this could be a good project for you guys put it on the days and sell it and all that in the meantime you can download these videos by for yourself put them on something like this and send them to your friend to your
School whoever as soon as they have their laptop they don’t need internet plug this in and they’re able to watch all the videos yeah that’s something you can do today or you want to do something about Benjamin JK Anderson you want to watch the waves of migration anything you want there on library
History you get it that’s a way to show it on that note yeah and this is a service this is a service to our community but at the same time it takes a lot of time and costs it’s it’s costs a lot time is money it also costs actual money
Um if you want to support you can you can give to the library YouTube channel you can also give to the library Leadership Academy so that young people can get this information in a more structured way where it’s a more structured class um where it is also broken down on their
Level for them to be able to understand it and ask questions and it’s more Interactive and uh you know this is you know very important that if you see value in this that you support it so that it can continue and if you look at
The volume of work that fol has put out there as a service to Liberia I mean that’s what you call patriotism Dennis didn’t say make me president before I serve my country I didn’t say making representative or Senator before I served my country this is what I have to give and if we
All have that Spirit of volunteerism and giving outside of vote for me or vote for my person libero would improve tremendously exponentially this is the way all societies improve is by citizen participation the people themselves have to be the change that they seek on that note I want to say thank you so
Much for watching thank our viewers and even those who will watch later we now end the broadcast with our song that says we are all liberians whether you are from Buffalo or mosado or you are from Grandpa City have a good night and God bless you we all love you here I am
Loving my people Foreign foreign
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