By: Jacqueline Gill
On May 26, 1943, President Edwin Barclay of Liberia became the first black president to visit the United States. Barclay’s visit began in Washington, D.C. with visits to the White House, the House of Representatives and Howard University. He later visited Akron, Ohio, where the Firestone company headquarters are located.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to build a strong relationship with Barclay to protect American strategic interests in Northern Africa during WWII as well as encourage the ongoing trade of Liberian natural rubber to the United States. Liberian rubber, monopolized by the American rubber and tire company, Firestone, benefited the Rust Belt economies during the Great Depression. The commodity also served U.S. international interests—during WWII, the United States Armed Forces relied on Firestone’s control of Liberian rubber to build transport vehicles and weapons. Liberia’s resources and proximity to the North African theatre were vital to the U.S. domestic and foreign security during WWII.
The birth of the independent state of Liberia is rooted in American domestic politics. With the support of U.S. President James Monroe and the U.S. Congress, Liberia “was settled in the 1800s by freeborn American blacks and freed American slaves, the result of a back-to-Africa movement by the American Colonization Society” (ACS). The ACS was an organization founded in 1816 and was composed of American slave owners and Quakers. White Southerners who feared massive slave uprisings if large numbers of free black Americans remained in the American South spearheaded the back-to-Africa movement. In 1822, the first 86 voluntary, black emigrants landed on Cape Montserrado, on what was then known as the “Grain Coast” of Liberia. The initial settlers arrived with a group of white ACS agents. Over the next forty years, nearly 20,000 more African American individuals immigrated to Liberia. The nation of Liberia officially gained independence from the ACS on July 26, 1847.
Prior to Barclay’s trip to the United States, President Roosevelt paid him a visit in Liberia in January 1943 following a strategic wartime meeting with British Premier Winston Churchill in Casablanca, Morocco. The U.S.S. Memphis, on which Roosevelt was travelling, dropped anchor at Roberts Field, Liberia on January 27, 1943. Roosevelt attended a luncheon in the Officer’s Mess Hall at Roberts Field. His purpose for landing in Liberia was to visit President Edwin Barclay and review African American troops. After the luncheon, Roosevelt accompanied Barclay to visit the U.S. Army’s 41st Regiment which was stationed in Liberia at the time. The 41st was an all-black regiment formally titled “41st Engineer General Service Regiment,” and informally known as the “famous Singing Engineers.” A White House press release stated that “Mr. Roosevelt also had inspected a large Firestone rubber plantation in the republic founded in 1822.”
Two other U.S. Presidents have made official visits to Liberia. Jimmy Carter visited the country in 1978, and George W. Bush visited in 2008 to honor the election of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female president on the African continent, to office. President Obama has met with Johnson-Sirleaf in Washington, D.C. on multiple occasions, but the American Commander in Chief has not yet made an official visit to Liberia during his presidency. It is worth noting, however, that President Obama has visited more African states than any other U.S. President before him.
Click here to view a short clip of Barclay’s visit to Washington, D.C.
Click here to view a video of President Obama’s February 2015 meeting with President Johnson-Sirleaf at the White House.
Click here for a detailed graphic of all U.S. Presidential visits to Africa.
Jacqueline Gill is an executive office intern at the EastWest Institute. She is recent graduate of Fordham University, where she majored in Middle Eastern studies and political science and minored in economics. Follow her on Twitter @jacqsgill.