Perry, Ruth (1939—)

Liberian politician, the first female head of state in modern Africa, who served as interim president of her war-torn West African nation from August 1996 through July 1997. Name variations: Ruth Sando Perry. Born in Grand Cape Mount, Liberia, on July 16, 1939; daughter of Marjon and Al-Haji Semila Fahnbulleh; married McDonald Perry; children: four sons and three daughters.

Ruth Perry was born in 1939 in the rural area of Grand Cape Mount into a family of Vai Muslims, one of Liberia's several indigenous ethnic groups. Thus, she grew up as a member of the majority in a nation where a small minority, the Americo-Liberians, held the reins of power. The oligarchy of the Americo-Liberians (descendants of former American slaves who had been repatriated to Africa from the 1820s through the 1850s) neglected the needs of the indigenous majority, at times even benefiting from their de facto enslavement.

As a child, Perry learned about the traditions of her Vai Muslim family and culture by attending classes at a traditional school, the Sande Society. Her parents, keen on their daughter obtaining a modern as well as a traditional education, also enrolled her in a Roman Catholic school run by missionary nuns in Liberia's capital, Monrovia. Trained as a teacher at the Teachers College of the University of Liberia, for a time Perry taught elementary classes in her hometown of Grand Cape Mount. Soon she married McDonald Perry, who went on to a successful career as a circuit court judge and senator. During these years, Perry gave birth to three daughters and four sons. In 1971, when the last of her children reached school age, she began to work at the Monrovia offices of the Chase Manhattan Bank, advancing through the ranks over the next years. Her husband's death led her into the world of politics when she decided to finish his term as senator.

In 1980, Americo-Liberian rule ended in a bloody revolution which brought a young military officer, Samuel K. Doe, to power. Soon, ordered society in Liberia began to disintegrate, and civil war loomed. In 1985, Doe "won" the Liberian presidency in an election widely seen as rigged. In this same election, Perry won a Senate seat representing the United Party. To protest the fraudulent election, most United Party officeholders and other opposition members boycotted the Senate, asserting that the Doe regime was illegitimate. With the argument that "one cannot resolve problems by staying away," Perry did not join in the protest, thus becoming the lone member of the opposition in the chamber. She also gained considerable publicity at the time by publicly opposing President Doe's efforts to legalize polygamy. The growing chaos in Liberia had an impact on Perry and her family in 1985, when the Chase Manhattan Bank closed its Monrovia offices and she lost her bank job. To support her children, she founded a retail business in Monrovia.

When full-scale civil war broke out in Liberia in 1989, Perry left Monrovia, returning to her home in Grand Cape Mount. Here she helped shelter some of the refugees from the conflict. Over the next seven years, a series of governments came and went in Monrovia, but none of them wielded significant power and the country experienced seemingly endless bloodshed. Several warlords terrorized the populace, with each one falsely claiming to be in charge of the country. The suffering of the Liberian people appeared to grow worse with each passing year until 1996, when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met at Abuja, Nigeria, to bring together the leaders of the four major warring factions. By that time, the civil war and anarchy had cost Liberia 150,000 lives. At least 2.6 million were homeless.

On August 17, 1996, ECOWAS representatives announced that they had drafted a cease-fire agreement between Liberia's warring factions. Also announced on that day was the replacement of Council of State chair Wilton Sankawulo by Ruth Perry. "I didn't lobby for the job," she said in response, "but the good Lord has made his choice and I will continue to pray for guidance." At her swearing-in ceremony in September, to which Perry wore traditional African dress, she became the first woman in contemporary Africa to become a head of state. In her acceptance speech, Perry said that she owed "this pledge to God and to the Liberian people. We have no illusions and shall endeavor to have no other loyalties to any group or faction." She warned the warlords that she would "treat them like a mother and, if necessary, that means discipline" and would not hesitate to flex her executive muscles.

In reality, Perry wielded little in the way of real power, having neither an armed force nor a treasury at her disposal. Nonetheless, within these profound limitations she handled her symbolic, moral role well. She displayed dignity and calm in a devastated nation's demoralizing environment, and helped nudge Liberians toward national elections, which occurred in July 1997. Perry then relinquished her position to the winner, Charles Taylor. At the start of the new millennium, Liberia remained a shattered society. In what is hoped will be a brighter future, Liberians may remember Ruth Perry for her constructive role in their nation's rebirth.

sources:

Brennan, Carol. "Ruth Perry 1939—," in Shirelle Phelps, ed., Contemporary Black Biography: Profiles from the International Black Community. Vol. 15. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1997, pp. 164–166.

Burke, Jason. "Where Monkey is Best Dish of the Day," in Guardian Weekly. July 27–August 3, 2000, p. 3.

French, Howard W. "In Liberia, Life Returns to a Grim Normality," in The New York Times. August 21, 1996, p. A6.

"New Interim Leader Is Chosen for Liberia," in The New York Times. August 19, 1996, p. A5.

Tuttle, Kate. "Perry, Ruth," in Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. NY: Basic Civitas Books, 1999, pp. 1509–1510.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia