Name: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Country: Liberia
The Struggle:
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first female democratically elected head of state in Africa, serving as the president of Liberia for two terms from 2006 to 2018. In 2011, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside fellow women’s peace activists, for her efforts to promote peace and women’s rights in her country.
Born in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1938, Johnson Sirleaf first entered the political sphere in 1972, when she gave a commencement address at her former high school that was deeply critical of the government. Sirleaf went on to serve in the Liberian government as minister of finance from 1979 until the violent coup d’état by Samuel Doe in 1980, when she was forced to flee the country. She returned to Liberia to run for the vice presidency in 1985 and was arrested for treason and sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was released a year into her sentence and went into exile in the United States.
Despite her imprisonment and subsequent exile from her home country, Sirleaf remained steadfast in her fight for democracy. Discussing her imprisonment in her Freedom Collection interview with the George W. Bush Institute, she stated, “Every time there’s a challenge and one is able to overcome the challenge, I think you get stronger. And sometimes the difficulties you face are themselves character-building and courage-enhancing. So when I went to prison, I came out stronger”.
The First Liberian Civil War began in 1989 when warlord Charles Taylor and his rebel group killed President Doe. Following a peace agreement that ended the war in 1997, Sirleaf returned to Liberia, this time to run for president. She lost the election to Taylor and was again forced to flee the country and was in exile when his government charged her with treason. By 1999, another civil war had broken out, and, in 2003, President Taylor went into exile. Sirleaf returned to Liberia for a third time to oversee preparations for democratic elections. In 2005, she again ran for president, on a platform of unity, justice, and ending corruption. She was sworn in as Liberia’s 24th president in January 2006.
Now 87 years old, Sirleaf continues her leadership as a champion of democracy, freedom, and women’s advancement through her organization, the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Center for Women and Development.
Discover more from Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her interviews from the Freedom Collection. Hear more from her on the Bush Center’s Strategerist podcast.
