Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf began her talk at Emory in September by listing “a number of historical and sentimental factors” that had drawn her to the university in spite of a host of demands as Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state.

“When I accepted to come to Emory and Atlanta I knew that I was coming to the birthplace of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” she said. “I knew that I was coming to the home of The Carter Center, which…in association with Emory has continued to help the Liberian people in their search for peace during and after fourteen years of violent and devastating conflict.”

Johnson Sirleaf, who visited Emory as a Distinguished Fellow of The Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, became Liberia’s president in January 2006 after an election monitored by The Carter Center. She is generally regarded as a beacon of hope for a country whose civil war left eight percent of the population dead, half the population displaced, much of the country without electricity or running water, and thousands of children who had been forced to serve as combatants.

“It was a conflict of unimaginable proportions,” Johnson Sirleaf said to an audience of 250 at the Emory Conference Center.

Johnson Sirleaf’s life story has been deeply interwoven with the last forty years of Liberian political history. After receiving a master’s in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1972, she returned to Liberia to become the nation’s first female minister of finance. Her career was cut short, however, in 1980, when the military coup of Samuel Doe forced her into exile in Kenya. There, she served as the director of Citibank in Nairobi for five years before returning to Liberia to join the opposition as a senatorial candidate. As a result of campaign statements made against Doe she was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison.

Pressure from the international community secured her release after a year, and Johnson Sirleaf moved to Washington D.C. where she served as vice president of HSBC Equator Bank, and from 1992-97 as assistant administrator and director of the United Nations Development Program for Africa.

During her time in exile, she remained active in Liberia’s politics, and in 1997 was drawn back to the country to mount a bid for presidency against Charles Taylor, the warlord whose 1989 invasion of Liberia issued in 14 years of civil war. She finished second and continued to campaign relentlessly for Taylor’s removal. In 2003 an internationally brokered ceasefire sent Taylor into exile in Nigeria.

Johnson Sirleaf compared her journey to that of The Halle Institute’s founder Claus Halle, who was drafted into the German army at the age of sixteen and in 1945 famously swam the Elbe River to surrender to American troops before beginning a life devoted to the fostering of understanding among peoples and nations of the world. “Like Halle I swim…I have had to swim from ferocious dictators who wanted my blood,” Sirleaf said. “I have had to swim in dangerous political waters predominated by men. I have had to swim the rivers of tradition to ensure success for the women whom I represent. This courage now has to be channeled into a resolve to lead the processes of change and renewal in my country, to lead the effort for change in the mind of Liberians and of Americans toward Liberians in Africa.”

Often referred to as the “Iron Lady,” Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 election on a platform of reconciliation, creation of jobs (unemployment runs as high as 80 percent in some areas), tackling corruption, and restoring electricity to the capital. She was prominently in the news last spring when she submitted an official request for Taylor’s extradition from Nigeria on behalf of neighboring Sierra Leone, who had indicted him for his role in that country’s civil war.
Johnson Sirleaf said that prioritiy areas for Liberia are national security, the rebuilding of government institutions, economic revitalization, and infrastructure development, including electricity, safe drinking water, and the reconstruction of roads, hospitals, schools, and universities.
“When I was inaugurated in January of this year, I inherited a devastated country,” she said. “Yet we proclaim to all that our people are blessed as we have the opportunity once again to use our vast natural and human resources to restore and renew our nation.”