Concerning Liberia

Just wondering about the actual history of this place. Is It true it was a nation for freed American slaves to have after the civil war..Did Liberia count toward their forty acres and a mule?

My Nephews' Father is a Liberian immigrant to the United States, His Grandparents are ministers of something or another..Education and Agriculture I think. They are my friends Im grateful to say. My nephew has a really cool name that I wish I could share. He's named after his father, who again was born in Liberia.

The Neph is American born and raised..he just turned 21, so he was the first new blood in our family. He is all about social justice reform. I wasn't going to reference this but it seems like everything keeps coming back to it. We have had very in-depth conversations about social justice as well as his Liberian heritage.

I have watched him grow up, alongside my children.
So, my Nephew
Liberian
Sicilian
Irish
English/Scottish
Jewish
Native American

The Liberian traits are dominant, most people wouldn't guess that he is actually all of those things.

Anywho, his dad told me of terrible stuff where he grew up, regular gunfire on his way to school, bodies etc..all the time. From an ongoing civil war there. I have the Wiki version and my perspective from family members..But what does it boil down to politically/socially from some of the more informed here?

What is the 'Real' story on Liberia?

a reply to: didntasktobeborned

I don't know much about Liberia but your Nephew's story is intriguing. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, he is Magnificent. Not sure his tribal heritage, he knows. I just kind of know our side from what I can piece together. My mother is first generation US with her people being from Sicily and Ireland. Well documented. anyway the list is in the OP. Just so many aspects to being a human besides our lineage..I am pretty proud of him though. He has directly defied me on more than one occasion,(and gotten away with it) so I look at him as one of my own. If by intrigued you mean you're curious as to his size and demeanor..Its exactly how you would probably imagine it. Big, Nice, and Smart. And he stands strong side forward. Im going to take credit for that (I was able to impart this on the dl,( his mom is super protective about his philosophy)..ha.yeah..hes right handed.

I really want to just say.."Oh yea..Intriguing how?, like, are You amused?"
But that's the Sicilian in ME..Goodfellas reference.

The purpose of me swinging by was / is to see if I could pick up some cool nuggets that I could lay on the Young Man next time I see him..a reply to: lostbook

People will never reform the outside world positively until they reform themselves first. Liberia (Liberation) is an example of this. Your nephew needs to work on himself as opposed to changing the world to match his flaws. He isn’t the exception to that rule by the way-he is the prevailing majority (99%+)

originally posted by: AcrobaticDreams

Your nephew needs to work on himself as opposed to changing the world to match his flaws.

Thats what he's working on now..I know this because last time we spoke he said,"I don't feel like a victim." (an advancement) This was important because he is somewhat militant...This told me he was thinking..I of course told him that to this day there are times when I still feel sorry for myself and victimized by whatever. And rather than him say his situation was different because of slavery (which he had done) he initialized the thought with me that things are tough all over..I can't do the conversation justice, but it was good stuff.

originally posted by: didntasktobeborned

originally posted by: AcrobaticDreams

Your nephew needs to work on himself as opposed to changing the world to match his flaws.

Thats what he's working on now..I know this because last time we spoke he said,"I don't feel like a victim." (an advancement) This was important because he is somewhat militant...This told me he was thinking..I of course told him that to this day there are times when I still feel sorry for myself and victimized by whatever. And rather than him say his situation was different because of slavery (which he had done) he initialized the thought with me that things are tough all over..I can't do the conversation justice, but it was good stuff.

He has an inferiority complex with daddy issues. He will need to grasp that. None of these things are social issues-they’re personal issues. We all suffer from our own diseases and mistake it for societal ills.

Im still hunting a Conspiracy or cooky alternate story about Liberia for Him though..
Psychoanalyze much?..Its all good. Intuition is the name of the game.

Exploration of his Psyche should have been a disregarded thought. Left for luck, as it is the residue of design, a suggestion considered and left to apply itself and fall to the floor because there was no place for it. Even so, You are not incorrect.

a reply to: AcrobaticDreams

originally posted by: didntasktobeborned
Im still hunting a Conspiracy or cooky alternate story about Liberia for Him though..
Psychoanalyze much?..Its all good. Intuition is the name of the game.

Exploration of his Psyche should have been a disregarded thought. Left for luck, as it is the residue of design, a suggestion considered and left to apply itself and fall to the floor because there was no place for it. Even so, You are not incorrect.

a reply to: AcrobaticDreams

I gave you the information that you were looking for about Liberia and your nephew. With such info presented, what are you actually looking for? And why?

The Liberation thing... Thank You. I will bounce it off him , see what he says..It will be interesting the language origin etc he comes back with. Ill leave the research to him. Thank You again. I suppose I need to become less transparent in sensitive areas..I was looking for a conversation starter with My Nephew and responding to a previously posed question concerning white privelage. Trying to answer it with a thread. a reply to: AcrobaticDreams

Thank You.
So I called him and asked him to look into the origin of the word. I didn't do it because I wanted to go off of what he came up with. Heres the scoop.(according to his quick research)

His translation..A Free Place

Liber from Latin is free
ia is a place

When he called me back he was excited and said he had never thought to do that before, and also learned while looking into this, that this year is the bi centennial (200 year anniversary) of the colonization there.

Forgive me as neither of us are linguists.

And thank You again for the suggestion, it worked. Exactly what I was looking for, though I realize at first I may have appeared dismissive because it was such an obvious answer..start at the beginning..duh..

I mentioned him being a tad militant..He hates the word militant..lol..He doesn't understand yet that his passionate distaste for a word is militancy. And that its totally acceptable. And his human right. As long as it doesn't interfere with rights of others.
I think he is doing well and will continue to do so.



a reply to: AcrobaticDreams

Liberia was created long before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was an early attempt to free and repatriate slaves.

He referenced that today actually, the way he looks at it is that the same thing happened there that happened with the US in its early days with breaking free of foreign rule.a reply to: Solvedit

By far the majority of Liberians are simply ordinary Africans and are not descended from freedmen.

a reply to: didntasktobeborned

Liberia is one of the places the racist Lincoln wanted to send the Free blacks to. It was founded in 1820's by Quakers who thought freed blacks stood a better chance in Africa and slave owners that didn't want free black giving slaves any ideas about revolting.

Sierra Leone is the british version.

originally posted by: Solvedit
By far the majority of Liberians are simply ordinary Africans and are not descended from freedmen.

This is the ATS I've come to know and love..

He has mentioned this distinction and can trace his ancestry back to Free Men and tribal heritage ..He broke it all down for me one day.

Yeah he got mad at me when I told him the North had no interest in freeing the slaves until they started getting their butts handed to them on the battlefield.They just turned them into a different kind of slave,along with the rest of us.
Doesn't matter how they want to romanticize it. Of course there were people who cared. Freeing the slaves was a stunt to obtain cheap cannon fodder, The Buffalo soldiers..a reply to: BernnieJGato

originally posted by: Solvedit
Liberia was created long before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was an early attempt to free and repatriate slaves.

This makes the version of history in my education seem a little sketchy..If the north didn't care about freeing slaves then why was the repatriation already being undertaken..THIS is intriguing,

a reply to: didntasktobeborned

The way I understand it, Lincoln opposed slavery, but thought that whites were superior to blacks. He didn't want new territories / states to allow slavery but wasn't going to stop it the ones where it was already in practice. He believed in free but separate. He didn't think blacks and whites could live together.

He used freeing the slaves as a stick to try and get the southern states that succeed into coming back to the union and warned them he would free them if they didn't.

a reply to: BernnieJGato


Here ya go,

The American Colonization Society (ACS) was formed in 1817 to send free African-Americans to Africa as an alternative to emancipation in the United States. In 1822, the society established on the west coast of Africa a colony that in 1847 became the independent nation of Liberia. By 1867, the society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants.

The African-American Mosaic Colonization

originally posted by: didntasktobeborned

originally posted by: Solvedit
Liberia was created long before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was an early attempt to free and repatriate slaves.

This makes the version of history in my education seem a little sketchy..If the north didn't care about freeing slaves then why was the repatriation already being undertaken..THIS is intriguing,

Well, it was small potatoes.