On this day in 1980, I boarded a flight out of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, with my infant girl snoozing in a denim snuggli on my chest--and flew into a historic African upheaval. In those days, Pan Ams weekly flight to West Africa routinely hit all the Atlantic coast capitals going south on Tuesdays and reversed the route each Thursday. It had an unusually long stop that night at Monrovia. Two weeks before, Liberia had had its first ever coup d’état, since it was settled in 1820 by African Americans, many of them freed from slavery. Coup leader Samuel K. Does forces of rebelling indigenous people, long oppressed by ruling Americo-Liberians, had executed all the top government leaders by firing squad. Armed rebels hunting stragglers boarded and searched our plane before we letting us fly on to Dakar, then out over the Atlantic. New York City greeted us with a gleaming spring sunrise. It felt good to be home. But the trauma of that African April would be a long time lifting from poor Liberia--and us.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 23:38:57 +0000
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