Spider and Pan-Africanism

Two books from my childhood deeply influenced me. One was a loosely-bound mimeographed book that I read in junior high school. Titled Legends of Liberia, it contained over 100 trickster stories, historical accounts and other folk tales.

Although each chapter in the book consisted of stories from a separate “tribe,” I noticed common themes and characters. That insight led to the main thrust of my work today, which is reminding Liberians of our deep and enduring commonalities.

For example, Spider the trickster was not only common to all Liberian groups; stories about him span West Africa and the Caribbean. Funny as it may sound, it was actually Spider who first led me to a pan-African consciousness — the realization that African people, despite their diversity, share certain underlying similarities!

Another important influence from my high school days was a biography of Edward Wilmot Blyden, a Liberian journalist and clergyman who lived about a hundred years before. Blyden argued that Africans share a deep, long and glorious past. At a time when white supremacy was widely accepted, he rejected the idea that blacks were inferior to whites or any other people.

Thanks to Dr. Mary Antoinette Brown-Sherman, I discovered the writings of Blyden’s mentor, Hilary Teage. I later published Teage’s writings as well as a biography and play about him.