Category: Reclaiming the Dream

Next, the Acts section of this website presents bills passed by the Liberian Legislature between 1857 and 1940.

You’re not a lawyer or senator, so why should you care about a bunch of acts?

You’ll be surprised. The acts name some couples who were granted divorces and criminals who had their citizenship restored. They also mention churches, community associations and cemeteries, all incorporated by the legislature.

In addition, earlier acts provide the names and salaries of all government employees, a degree of transparency not shown in later years. Use the search option to look up the name of your home town or a relative. You’ll be surprised what you might find.

At the far right is a link to my Contact page. It offers several ways for you to reach me. In my view, dialogue is critical to any process of national healing. It must also be at the heart of any scholarship that serves that process.

Finally, a box labeled “Kolokwa Wisdom” appears at the top right of this page. It features sayings or proverbs derived from Kolokwa, the language spoken by most Liberians.

The sayings featured here are comparable to the sayings of Confucius. They are often lessons derived from the Liberian experience specifically. They deserve to be transmitted from generation to generation.

Kolokwa is often called “Liberian English,” but that is misleading. In reality, the language is a hybrid, with words and rules derived from a variety of local languages. Its name is derived from “colloquial.”

Its widespread use notwithstanding, Kolokwa is often denigrated by Liberian policy-makers. Some regard it, erroneously, as a corrupt imitation of standard English. Others dismiss it as impure. But not the urban poor, some of whom now call themselves “Kolokwadians.”

Those hoping to ignore Kolokwa out of existence do so at their own peril. Like a child born out of wedlock, it is here to stay. It deserves to be legally recognized, sooner rather than latter.

In highlighting these resources, Patrick’s Place offers an alternative approach to national healing. Not peace-keeping based on foreign military forces alone. Not development policies imported from Washington, DC, or Brussels.

None of those will ensure a stable society, without a healing of hearts and spirits. That work can not be achieved by partner governments and foreign NGOs, no matter how well intentioned. At the end of the day, none but ourselves can heal our minds.

Another section of Patrick’s Place is labeled Folktales. It presents a small sample of Liberian folktales.

The primary goal is to increase interest in Liberia’s storehouse of oral literature which, although undeniably rich, is often overlooked by students of African oral traditions. Most of the tales in this collection were taken from “Legends of Liberia,” collected in the 1950s.

A second purpose is to draw attention to the genres and other patterns that run through these stories. These patterns, which transcend linguistic and even national boundaries, have long been obscured by a tradition among Liberianists that emphasizes ethnic differences over commonalities.

Liberia’s recent war has left many Liberians with an inferiority complex tied to a reliance on foreign relief. One way for Liberians to overcome that mindset is by building upon our folk tales and other oral traditions.

These need to be incorporated into curriculum. Like The Iliad and “Cinderella” in Western countries, our folk arts could well be the basis for short stories and movies.

Welcome to Patrick’s Place, a website offering a variety of resources on Liberia’s rich history and heritage.

This site will serve as the hub of a campaign to address negative portrayals of Liberian history and to counteract their harmful effects on the Liberian psyche. Entitled “Reclaim the Dream,” it is designed to do for Liberian history what Carter G. Woodson and other pioneering scholars achieved for black history in America.

The campaign will highlight many commonalities and bring to light significant accomplishments of earlier Liberians. It aims to foster greater unity, a sense of national dignity, and empathy among Liberians, regardless of ethnicity.

How can history and heritage help to heal our national rifts? To understand that idea, take a tour of the menu bar at the top of this page, from left to right.

The first three menu tabs link to examples of my research. Of these, the most significant is Kola Forest, which describes one of my books. That book, Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea, presents the history of the Liberian people before 1822. It fills a longstanding void in  our understanding of our ourselves. It will also help cement our connection to previous generations, which is critical to any sense of national identity.