Helene CooperI am so excited, i just got a copy of Liberian author and journalist Helene Cooper's new memoir entitle The House on Sugar Beach. The book is so good i am already half way through it.
Helene tells a vivid story about her life growing up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea. Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country. When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child — a common custom among the Liberian elite or congo people. Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became known as “Mrs. Cooper’s daughter.” Helene like my mother is of Americo-Liberian or congo origin descendants of free slaves who left the United States in the late 1800s and founded Liberia.
Helene tells a vivid story about her life growing up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea. Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country. When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child — a common custom among the Liberian elite or congo people. Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became known as “Mrs. Cooper’s daughter.” Helene like my mother is of Americo-Liberian or congo origin descendants of free slaves who left the United States in the late 1800s and founded Liberia.
For years the Cooper daughters — Helene, her sister Marlene, and Eunice — blissfully enjoyed the trappings of wealth and advantage. But on April 12, 1980, a group of soldiers staged a coup d’état, assassinating President William Tolbert and executing his cabinet. The Coopers and the entire Congo class were now the hunted, being imprisoned, shot, tortured, and raped. Helene, Marlene, and their mother fled Sugar Beach, and then Liberia, for America. They left Eunice behind.
I thought the book was well-written and thought provoking, and though i was only a kid of about 3 or 4 years old when the coup that Helene describe in the book took place,i can still relate to her story, because i remember how scared my parents were during those days too. I know the places she talks about, like Sophies icecream shop to Relda cenema and to Ceasar's Beach.
The book is a good read, it is a story every Liberian Can relate to,but above all the book reminds you that no matter how long or how far away from home you are, you will always be connected someway somehow to the land of your birth.
The President announced a new initiative to combat the malaria epidemic in Liberia. Mr. Clinton disclosed that the Clinton Foundation has signed a new agreement with a leading ACT (Artesunate Combined Therapy) manufacturing company to reduce the price of malaria drugs by 30%.
Because of the inhumane way they were treated in America, many of the free slaves, after the American civil war of the 1860s decided to come to Africa, and start a new life.
Free slaves in America preparing to come to Liberia in 1862.
The Elizabeth brought the first group of free slaves to Africa in1822 and settle on an island called perseverance island. today its called the providence island.
The Liberian president residence as it looked in 1850.
The Liberian cabinet in the late 1800s.
Liberian 2 dollars of 1880.
Former fighters Of the Liberian War are to be blame for many of these violent crimes.
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