Lexington, KY - A few years ago, Kentucky Educational Television told the story of Kentucky in Africa, a settlement in Liberia founded by the Kentucky Chapter of the American Colonization Society and still called "Clay-Ashland" today. Lexington's own Henry Clay led a movement in the late 1820s that sought to address the slavery issue in the United States by offering safe travel to slaves "back to Africa." One of those who took the trip to Liberia and settled in Clay-Ashland was a young slave named Alfred Francis Russell, who was born in a cabin where the Gainesway Farm now sits. Another was an 11-year-old native of Fayette County named William David Coleman. Both Kentuckians eventually became presidents of Liberia - Russell in 1883, Coleman in 1896. The KET piece is an outstanding example of how the Bluegrass shares a common history with a place so far away. Kentucky is actually the birthplace of more Liberian presidents than American ones.
Today, a new project has risen from people in the United States and Liberia that demonstrates how we might share a common destiny as well.
In 1980 Liberia experienced a military coup that triggered a pair of civil wars and decades of violence, economic devastation, and the flight of thousands of Liberians to countries all over the world, including the United States. Today, Liberia is slowly recovering politically and economically, but its people still struggle to connect with their heritage and culture as they seek economic security for themselves and their families.
Ceasefire Liberia was started by Ruthie Ackerman, a U.S.-based journalist, with help from a grant from Global Voices, a global non-profit organization of online journalists and advocates. The project's home is virtual - www.ceasefireliberia.com, a blog that links the Liberian community in Liberia with those who have left.
"I am a journalist who is writing a book about Liberian youth in Staten Island," said Ackerman. "As the project developed over the last few years, it became more multimedia focused. I decided that instead of just documenting the experience of Liberian youth living in this one community in America after they fled their country's 14-year civil war, I wanted to give the youth the chance to document their own experiences."
Ackerman's background and her current project should provide Kentuckians with some hauntingly familiar echoes. Shortly after college she spent time volunteering at a racetrack, working with undocumented immigrants from South America and Mexico. "I found myself moved by the men's lives washing, grooming and walking the horses, and I spent most of my days photographing them," she says in her online bio. That and other experiences eventually led to Ceasefire Liberia.
The site has become where many Liberians go - to tell their stories - in their own voices with each other. It is also an outstanding resource for people outside the community to learn more about the real struggles of a 21st-century immigrant or refugee.
It also provides a lesson for what is needed most: acceptance. "There is always a struggle between the old and the new," Ackerman said. "It is important for Liberians, like any immigrant or refugee community, to hold onto their cultural identities and not forget where they came from. But it is also important if they want to integrate into American society to assimilate and acclimate and integrate. The more the communities around Liberians reach out to them and provide much-needed services, the better off they'll be and the more integrated they'll feel."
Now the story of Liberia - one in which prominent Kentuckians played a major role at the start - is engaging us once again, and there are lessons for all of us. "People in Kentucky or anywhere else should care about this project because the world is not just about what's happening in my backyard anymore - it's about a global backyard. With globalization the entire world is interconnected," Ackerman said.
Again, the history and current circumstances facing this faraway place have haunting similarities to Kentucky's own. "Liberia was created by the American Colonization Society to send freed black slaves back to Africa, where they were meant to live in racial harmony. That one action led to over a century and a half of tension and turmoil in Liberia between the Liberians who originally lived on the land and the new settlers," Ackerman explained. "Eventually when tensions bubbled over, a gruesome civil war broke out, which led Liberians to flee back to America, coming full circle. Now these Liberian refugees are literally in our backyard. We didn't intervene in their civil war in the 1990s, and now the fallout is a large number of Liberian refugees that are falling through the cracks here in our very own cities and suburbs."
This is an important lesson for our businesses and our citizens. It's no secret that immigrants today are met with suspicion and hostility - not only in Kentucky, but nearly everywhere in America. Radio talk show hosts still spew hateful diatribes against "criminaliens" and call entire countries an "exporter of women with mustaches and VD." Candidates for statewide offices call for constitutional amendments to prevent children born in the United States from becoming citizens because their parents are undocumented. Some applaud when local governments print public documents in English only. Out on Ellis Island, Lady Liberty is weeping.
Our economy will never truly flourish until our attitudes toward immigrants experience a quick and complete reversal. History shows that when given support, immigrants generate opportunity for themselves and others. Nearly two centuries ago, Kentuckians shuttled off two young slaves born in the Bluegrass "back" to a land they never knew, and they went on to lead their new country. Their ancestors should be welcomed with open arms to their Old Kentucky Home.