She is interviewed by california representative karen bass, the top democrat on the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on africa. Host i must tell you that i enjoyed every minute of reading the book. Guest thats the best thing you could say to me. Host absolutely. When theres a book you almost disappointed when it comes to the end. Thats exactly the way i felt in reading madame president. It was special to me because i certainly know president Johnson Sirleaf and i thought i knew about her past and all, but you went into such incredible detail about her rise, and it left me feeling what an unbelievable leaders she is, international leader. But it also made want to ask about you. I know this isnt her first book. Your first book is the house of sugar beach, right . Guest yes. Im from liberia, and just accept that you just said. I thought i knew a lot about her when i started researching for this book because i was alike. And i heard of or all of my life can even as littl as a little g. She was a political dissident. Once i started digging into it i was amazed at how much i didnt know. I am from library to pick my family was from the free my great great great grandfather, elijah johnson, was on the first ship of 88 freda freed black slaves in 1820. They ended up first in sierra leone and eventually ended up in liberia in 1822. Thats on my moms side. On my father side they were five cooper brothers that sailed from Norfolk Virginia in 182 1829, to liberia and thats where my dad side of the family comes from. Host. I grew up there and onld to the United States in 1980, but after a military coup coup in liberia, these were very brave and courageous but this is a very, very unbalanced antebellum society, things would society that flight from except this time they were the ones going over. This whole unbalanced system sort of explored in 1980 after after there was a military to. I have found those who are in the government who were targeted. My cousin he was minister of Foreign Affairs executed, by firing squad. Host we see in the book . Use of march the people out . Guest he is one of the 13 different interestingly, ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the time was minister of finance and there were 13 cabinet officials who were killed or choose one of the few who was not and wait for some reason what in the book as well. Host i had to joy that was one of the riveting scenes in the book. Because when you talk about wenches basically pretty much marched out that she was anticipating being executed because she knew what it happened and the way the people were crying to her to save them before they were marched out. She wasnt able to do that obviously, but that was one of the most captivating part of the book. I have to tell you that i think that the part of use history that people dont really know about. I like the way in the beginning of the book you described how it was a combination of forces. There were racists that one of the black folks to leave because they didnt want freed black people roaming around the United States, and then they were also the people who were supportive, who were abolitionists and a combined forces and that led to the first trip. I think the u. S. Population know so little about the slavery. , and as part of our history. We didnt know about but i do to take that i was disappointed to hear that our ancestors went back there and replicated, not completely the oppression they faced in the United States, but the way they treated the native liberians or the native africans because they were not liberia, was not very good. Guest it shows so much about the universality of the way we treat each other as human beings, treat each other. Our ancestors who went back there were, one of the good things they did was to outlaw, britain had outlawed the slave trade in west africa at that point, and they were very, very antislavery. Antislavery. Keep in mind that a lot of the native africans who met in there had been engaged in the slave trade. They were the people who are selling their brothers and sisters into slavery, and they were singing this way of life completely economic stem for them, eradicated. That was part of some attention between the two sides. You also had a lot of beliefs among these colonists that because, and this is we get into some of the racial complexity that library has been dealing with for almost 200 years now, a lot of these colonists were mixed race, children of white slave owners, women had these mixed race children and he wanted to get these children off of the plantation. And so these kids went back to africa thinking that, many of them thinking that because they had white blood they were therefore superior to some of the native africans. All of this, there is a tangle of race and class and the slave trade and all of that fed into the pot of what became liberia. Its such an interesting history. Its so wedded to the United States. Host let me ask you a question because in the beginning of the book you talk about the various tribes that were in conflict with each other before the africanamericans arrived, and then later in the book you talk about the tensions between the various sex. Where they still those original tribal differences . Like when taylor comes around and the people aligned with them . Guest some of it was in some of it wasnt. The crown people never like the others. That goes back a long way. A lot of these entities were massed when the freed american slaves arrived and then it just became native liberians versus the freed slaves. We called them the kongo people. The kongo country kitchen. Once that was ripped away then we sort of went back to a lot of tension between the different ethnic groups that a bin that they can with and then there were some that were created later on when the military coup was led by a guy who became president , and he elevated his tribe. He appointed them all to the high levels of the Library Office can just like other sedan in the past. Just different people. That angered a lot of the other tribes so you had a lot of this tribal warfare going on as well. That was one of the things that led to the civil war. Host you left when youre 14. You left in 1980. I wanted to know you could spend a bit describing life was like before . As a 14yearold maybe you saw some of the beginning to happen, the tensions and all. Maybe didnt. But what was life like for you in liberia before . Guest a lot of this is in my book, the house at sugarbeet. For me it was a completely normal african childhood except that i was sort of treated as low bit like a little princess, protected by my family. We were in a couple session of a class position so even though it is a terribly poor country of its protective wall that. I went to a really good school. My brother and my sisters. I played out in the yard. My parents i topic him we moved to the statehouse, a hous houset sugar beaches on the atlantic ocean, 22 rooms. I had my own bedroom for the first time in my life. I was scared to sleep by myself. My parents did what was right, elaborate the tiger they went out and got me a sister. Her mom i prefer to live with us because theres a chance to go to a better school. This is very common in liberia. Eunice and i will raise to get ancestors. Then when that trying to happen and are found was attacked, we ran away. Eunice didnt come with us. She chose not to come which is something i did was at the time. I came here thinking we just left her, but its a long, complicated story that a go into my first book that we were separated for 23 years and it wasnt until 2003, i didnt know didnt know she was alive. I went back and found her again. And sort of found my sister can. Thats what my whole first book was about, about going through, when the trench will happen in 1980 by fannie was attacked. My mom was gang raped by shoulders which he traded herself to protect me and eunice and my younger sister. We went through a lot and then came as immigrants. As refugees actually. Eventually got american citizenship but we get amnesty under the Ronald Reagan amnesty act in 1988. But a lot of it was, my childhood uprooting wa with her growing up as a liberian, my kind of life seizing under the 1980 coup and coming to the United States and trying to push the liberian part out of my life because all i wanted was to assemble it can be like everybody else. And then realizing years later that i needed this part of my life back. Host when did you first meet madame president . Whats she present or did you know before . Guest one before limit she had just become president. It was in 2006 when she came here for a big address, a joint session of congress. Ive known about her all my life because host what did you know . Guest she became famous, she was minister of finance in 1979 19819791980 when the coun but it time i was 14. She knew my parents, and so she was somebody that as a child growing up in liberia i heard of. She was always speaking truth to power virtually always criticizing the same government that she worked for. In 1985 when she was arrested and thrown into jail, i heard all about that. She became at the sense of a political icon. She was its really bad , said a bad word. Host i know what was coming. Guest angela davis afro, political fighting, talking truth to power pictures jailed and she wasnt going to ban anything to get her to take this senate seat. After she won, she is pretty stubborn time what i think a member seeing a picture her in your and reminded me of the six is actually when she gets out of prison. Wearing the tshirt that said something military. Guest she has the dreadlocks. Host ive known her for a few years and so i know as the elegant state woman. Guest you have met her. Its so hilarious because you matter. You know how when you first meet she comes across as so reserved. She seemed very standoffish. Then you put that together with host absolutely. I also imagine when youre talking about you knew her as minister of finance, wasnt she the only one that had a position that i in the country . Guest liberia, at the time she was collecting she was the only woman in a cabinet in 19791980. She was certainly the first woman to be in such a high position. But library has always been, its a very patriarchal place but theyve always been a handful of women up in higher levels of government. She was a female minister of finance. In 1979 that was a pretty big deal. Host a few things have sitting to me. I knew a little bit about her past internship work for the world bank, the imf. She was a harvard trained economist, and in the way she, you discover any book, that she systematically build those relationships with the International Finance community. And i wonder if she had it in her mind, you talk about in the very beginning she knew she was destined for something, but i wonder if she had in the back of her mind always that she would wind up being president. Because she strategically use those relationships to deal with that Death Library was facing. I dont think anyone else wouldve been able to have done that. Guest i dont think anyone else couldve gotten library is dead. 4. 7 billion in debt. Was about to be kicked out of the imf, was about, i mean, couldnt qualify for anything. The country was this post were apocalyptic mess at this point. Itd been through 15 years of civil war, 23 years of gross financial mismanagement, and the place was a rack. And because she had these International Context and she had this background, she is uniquely qualified to begin the process to get this debt forgiven. That was a big deal. I asked him many times winky to think youre going, when did you decide you wanted to run for president . Ive never gotten a good answer from her. Its something that he falls for her but i think it started a long time ago. I think it started back when she left her abusive husband. She was a victim of domestic abuse. She got married at 17. By the time she was 21 she had four boys under the age of four or five. She left them and came to the United States. She left them with her mother and her motherinlaw and came to the United States to get her associate degree. Then went back to library and started working for the ministry of finance. That was the moment pictures one of the very few handful of women working in the Debt Division for the ministry of finance in the 1960s. You can imagine this was a very maledominated area i think that sort of started back then. Her husband come ship fights with her husband and he was very abusive. She started an affair with another liberian man. Host that was pretty shocking. Pretty bold. He drove up to the house. Guest yeah, and she finally walked out and took control of her life in the middle 1960s, which women, you think think back to then, women didnt really do that. You sort of took it and took it and took it. She was pretty extraordinary from early, from the getgo. Host knowing how humble she is, she probably would not admit this guest shes not humble. No one who would run host every encounter ive had with her, shes so understated. I interacted with her numerous, because she comes to the u. S. , and shes no stranger on the hill. Most people know her, but shes always very understated given her stature and all. I think given all of her experience in the financial world, internationally, i dont know how she couldv could looke guys, whether you were talking about samuel doe or ten or any of and not guest idiot . Host thank you. I think that was the name of one of the chapters of the book. She called the president and immediate. Guest that was a different campus speech here in philadelphia. Then she went back, she and comprehensive we went back to liberia. As speeches so that we should call the military ticket of liberia and idiot and they were back to liberia and the two were in jail. Thats what happens when you call the president and idiot. Host do you think it weighed heavy on her initial support for taylor . Guest thats a big blemish in her reputation. When Charles Taylor first invaded liberia in 1989 right at the turn of 1989, 1990, she supported him. A lot of people who probably shouldve known better supported him at the time because they were so fed up with samuel doe. Host didnt the United States support him . Guest that cia helped busting out of jail. Looking at the people who initially supported taylor, we could be here all day. But, so she initially supported him and it wasnt until come it took eight months before became sort of company was clear and liberia that his forces were as bad as doe. But she took it, as it became known that he was, the people that hed unleashed on the country were easily as violent as he was, and they had unleashed rape and assault and murder on the civilian population, not only attacking the government soldiers but the liberian civilians as well and that is what it took for when Charles Taylor killed one of her close friends, for her to turn on you. She flipped on them but she still paying the price even to this day for the initial support. She said you know . He turned out to be a madman. She did help put them in power. Host but i wonder, too, and i dont member if he described in the book, what was the initial reason for it . They killed doe so what was the initial reason for attacking the people . It wasnt as though there was an uprising supporting doe unless i missed that. Guest those tribes still supported him. Thats what the whole civil war was about. Charles taylor invaded liberia in december of 1989, through the ivory coast and came over the border and there were so many people, the tribes had been attacked by the doe regime, the people who supported the other laboring guy who tried to attempt a coup in 1985. As doe brutally quelled at this effort and it got everybody in that tribe. So there were people who were very, very angry at doe and they are the ones who flock to taylor. But they all stayed and thats where you get this and thats what the whole, the actual civil war comes from. Whereas people getting killed because of the tribe that they belong to. And that was horrific and thats what started the whole liberia becambe convinced that the timer child soldiers. Both sides can government soldiers and the rebels, abducting the children of these women and turning them into child soldiers and raping the mothers in front of the children and then taking the children away. That was a truly horrific time for liberia. Host i was shocked to read about how the kids were drugged, was terrible. Switching gears and minute, thinking about the women, the market women, the women who organized. Guest they were my favorite. Host as i traveled throughout many african countries always see the market women. Trekkie they are ubiquitous, everywhere. Host knowing how they deliberately organize, and theres one part in the book where they are organizing separate from Johnson Sirleaf. She is going about doing a Tradition Campaign and theyre doing their own separate organizing. And then they essentially confront her pick of 1. In the capital, confront in a positive way and she becomes or emotional. I just wondered what you thought about that. Why didnt she recognize them in the beginning . Was it that she did want to be the woman president . She did want to be associated with the working women . What was the reason they organize heavily trafficked i dont think she did want to be the woman president , but i think theres some technocratic parts of the personality that kind of, they dont ruler, but this woman is in her heart a global bureaucrat who, she looks at things. She breaks down problems. She is not overemotional. She can be, there are times that she comes at things in a very bureaucratic way. When she was running for president she looked at this wasteland and thought this is a country that needs this and fat and fat, and im going to fix it. She thought she could win the presidency on her own merit just looking at presenting her walkers world host people looked at her like what . Meanwhile though, and she was aware of this, meanwhile there was this guerrilla, underground Guerrilla Campaign going on by these market women who had endured 15 years of horrific civil war that they thought was brought on by them in. They were not going to have that anymore. They wanted a femalepresident. They saw this woman, a harvard educated lobo bureaucratic she stood up to doe. They knew she was to begin with and the he thought she is our g, we are going after. Once she realized, she embraced that entire movement. Host anoth