Background

Ethnicity: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's father was Gola and her mother had mixed Kru and German ancestry.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born on October 29, 1938, in Monrovia, Liberia. She is the daughter of Jahmale Carney Johnson and Martha Dunbar Johnson. Her father was the son of a minor Gola, however, he grew up in Monrovia, where he was raised by an Americo-Liberian family. He later entered politics and became the first Liberian from an indigenous ethnic group to be elected to the country's national legislature.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf grew up with one sister and two brothers.

Education

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf attended the College of West Africa, a preparatory school, from 1948 to 1955. Later she studied at Madison Business College where she received an associate degree in Accounting in 1961. She also received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1970. Sirleaf studied at the Harvard Kennedy School from 1969 to 1971 and received a Master of Public Administration degree.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Indiana University, Brown University, Yale University, and Harvard University. She also received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Tampa in 2009.

Career

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf started her career as Assistant Minister of Finance under the government of William Tolbert in 1972. However, the following year, she resigned after a disagreement about government spending. In 1979, she was elevated to the post of minister of finance, becoming the first woman to hold that office in Liberia. She held this post until April 12, 1980. In 1981, Sirleaf moved to Nairobi to serve as vice president of the African Regional Office of Citibank, a post she held for four years. She resigned from Citibank following her involvement in the 1985 general election in Liberia and went to work for Equator Bank in 1986. Sirleaf held the post of vice president and member of the executive board at Equator Bank until 1992. Also, she was a member of the board of directors of the Synergos Institute from 1988 to 1999.

In 1992, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf left that position to become assistant administrator and director of the African bureau of the United Nations Development Programme. In 1997, she resigned from the post to run for president in the general elections in Liberia. Sirleaf ran as the presidential candidate from the Unity Party against Charles Taylor and was placed second, getting one-fourth of the total votes in the controversial election. As a result, she left the country soon after and went into exile.

Sirleaf, named the head of Liberia's opposition Unity Party, returned to Liberia in April of 2002 to prepare for elections scheduled for October of 2003. In a run-off election on November 8, 2005, Sirleaf, with nearly 60 percent of the vote, defeated Weah handily. On January 16, 2006, she assumed the office of the President of Liberia. In 2011, she decided to run for a second term in office in the presidential election, a decision highly criticized by the opposition leaders. She won against the 'Congress for Democratic Change' Party candidate Winston Tubman and took the presidential oath for her second presidency on January 16, 2012. She held this post until January 22, 2018.

In 2019, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for the health workforce. In 2020, she stepped down from this post and became co-chair of the World Health Organization's Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. She also served as a member of the board of directors at the Mastercard Foundation and as a member of the advisory board at the Brenthurst Foundation.

Ellen is a founder of the International Institute for Women in Political Leadership, a member of the advisory board of the Modern Africa Growth and Investment Company, a member of the financial committee of Modern Africa Fund Managers, among other positions.

Achievements

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  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a Liberian politician and activist, who is known as the first elected female head of state in Africa. She served as the 24th President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Upon becoming the president, she made considerable progress, notably to relieve Liberia from its crushing foreign debt.
  
  In 1988, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf received the Roosevelt Institute Freedom of Speech Award. In 2006, she became the recipient of the Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger. On November 5, 2007, Sirleaf was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2011, she was conferred with the Nobel Prize for Peace, which she shared with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman. The award was given for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work. Sirleaf also received such awards as the Humane Order of African Redemption, the Order of the Pioneers of Liberia, the Order of the Star of Africa, and the Order of Mono. In 2012, she received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament, and Development.
  
  Forbes magazine named Sirleaf as the 51st most powerful woman in the world in 2006. She also appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 2006. The statue of Sirleaf was erected in Imo State, Nigeria.

Works

More photos

• book

  • This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President

    (In this stirring memoir, Sirleaf shares the story of her ...)

    2009

Religion

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf grew up as a Presbyterian, but later she became a member of the United Methodist Church, attending the First United Methodist Church of Monrovia.

Politics

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf started her political career in the late 1970s when she began to criticize the economic policies of Liberian president William Tolbert. As a result, Tolbert appointed her as minister of finance. However, in 1980 Tolbert was assassinated during a military coup that installed a young Army sergeant, Samuel Doe, in power. The new government made Sirleaf president of the Liberian National Bank, but she resigned to protest human rights violations by the regime. In 1985, she joined the Liberian Action Party.

Twice in 1985, the Doe regime imprisoned Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. For the first time, she was charged with treason after criticizing the Doe regime's economic policy in a speech to Liberian-American groups in Philadelphia in July. Sirleaf called for less government intervention in the economy, the construction of fewer large buildings, and more rural development. She was placed in a military stockade in August, convicted in a closed military trial, but a few weeks later, under pressure from the United States government to hold free elections, Doe ordered her and other jailed politicians freed. Sirleaf ran for Liberia's senate in the October of 1985 elections and won, but she refused to accept the seat in protest of the election fraud. After an attempted coup against the Doe government by Thomas Quiwonkpa on November 12, 1985, Sirleaf was arrested and imprisoned again on November 13 by Doe's forces. She was released in July 1986 and secretly fled the country to the United States later that year.

At the beginning of the First Liberian Civil War in 1989, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf helped raise money for the war and founded the National Patriotic Front of Liberia with Taylor and Tom Woewiyu. By 1996, when peace briefly came to Liberia and elections were scheduled for July, Sirleaf returned to Liberia, and ran against Taylor for the presidency. She managed only 10 percent of the votes, as opposed to Taylor's 75 percent. After that, she left the Liberian Action Party and secretly fled the country to the United States.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf returned to Liberia in April of 2002. The same week she returned, Taylor banned all political rallies. However, in 2003 Taylor left office and went into exile in Nigeria in August of 2003. In 2005, Sirleaf ran for president and promised to fight corruption, promote economic development, and restore electricity in Monrovia within six months. Her most popular promise among Liberian women may have been to get Liberia's children back into school. Sirleaf won elections and was inaugurated on January 16, 2006.

As President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf concentrated on the problems she believed were both pressing and relatively easy to solve. The first of these, she concerned the country's massive foreign debt. Sirleaf used her contacts in the international business world and her considerable personal charm to negotiate favorable settlements with a number of creditors, notably the United States government, which forgave $358 million in Liberian debt in February of 2007. This relief allowed Sirleaf's government to begin raising the salaries of policemen and other civil servants, a fundamental step in the struggle against corruption. The country was deemed eligible to participate in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative in 2008. In 2010, the country reached the completion point of the HIPC initiative, qualifying it for relief from its entire external debt.

Following her victory in the 2005 election, Sirleaf pledged to promote national reconciliation by bringing in opposition leaders into her administration. She also appointed several women to high-level posts in her administration. Upon her inauguration, Sirleaf promised that she would impose a "zero-tolerance" policy on corruption within the government. However, critics argued that corruption remained rampant within Sirleaf's administration.

On July 26, 2007, Sirleaf celebrated Liberia's 160th Independence Day and asked 25-year-old Liberian activist Kimmie Weeks to serve as National Orator for the celebrations. Weeks called for the government to prioritize education and health care. A few days later, President Sirleaf issued an Executive Order making education free and compulsory for all elementary school-aged children. In 2010, Sirleaf signed into law a Freedom of Information bill.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf dismissed her entire cabinet from office on November 3, 2010. She said that she did this in order to give her administration a "clean slate" in preparation for the final year of her term. By early December 2010, Sirleaf had reconstituted her entire cabinet, replacing seven of her nineteen ministers.

Regarding foreign policy, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf first tried to repair relations between Ivory Coast and Liberia. She also forged close relations with the United States. Sirleaf offered to place the headquarter of the United States Africa Command in Liberia. Besides, she also strengthened relations with the People's Republic of China and contributed to Liberia's reconstruction, building several transmitters to extend the Liberia Broadcasting System nationwide. During the 2011 Libyan civil war, Sirleaf added her voice to the international community who asked the previous Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi to cease the use of violence. At the same time, she criticized the international military intervention in Libya, declaring that violence does not help the process whichever way it comes.

In February 2012, Bong County Senator Jewel Taylor proposed a bill that would carry a term of ten years in prison for homosexual activity, while a similar bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. Some time later, Sirleaf addressed the issue, saying that she would not repeal the current law but would also not sign into law either of the two proposed bills. She said that with the unprecedented freedom of speech and expression Liberia enjoys, Liberia's democracy will be strong enough to accommodate new ideas and debate both their value and Liberia's laws with openness, respect, and independence.

In 2018, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became a nonpartisan politician.

Views

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf does not consider herself a feminist. She has publicly distanced herself from the very movement that first got her elected, decrying feminism as "extremism." However, Sirleaf signed an executive order on domestic violence, protecting women, men, and children against "physical, sexual, economical, emotional and psychological abuse." She was also disappointed by the fact that a key part of her proposal, the abolition of female genital mutilation against young girls under the age of 18, was removed.

Quotations: "The future belongs to us, because we have taken charge of it. We have the commitment, we have the resourcefulness, and we have the strength of our people to share the dream across Africa of clean water for all."

"If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."

"I don't think people understand the awesomeness of the destruction of this country - its institutions, its infrastructure, its law, its morals."

"As more men become more educated and women get educated, the value system has to be more enhanced and the respect for human dignity and human life is made better."

Membership

During her studies in the United States, Sirleaf became a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. In addition, she is an honorary member of the Links, Incorporated.

Personality

Those who know Ellen Johnson Sirleaf say that she is a determined, strong-willed and principled woman. In her homeland, she was nicknamed "The Iron Lady of Africa."

Connections

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf married James Sirleaf in 1956. They raised four sons. In 1961, Ellen and James divorced because of James' abuse.

Father:

Jahmale Carney Johnson

Mother:

Martha Dunbar Johnson

Ex-husband:

James Sirleaf

James Sirleaf (died 1990) worked for the Department of Agriculture.

stepson:

Fombah Sirleaf

Fombah Sirleaf heads the Liberian National Security Agency, with responsibility for internal security.

Son:

Robert Sirleaf

Robert Sirleaf served as head of the National Oil Company of Liberia.

Son:

Charles Sirleaf

Charles Sirleaf holds a senior position at the Central Bank of Liberia.

Sister:

Jennie Bernard

References

• Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them Former Senator John McCain, one of America's most inspiring politicians, pays tribute to men and women who have exemplified composure, wisdom, and intellect in the face of life's toughest decisions.
  2007
• Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf The harrowing, but triumphant story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, leader of the Liberian women's movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first democratically elected female president in African history.
  2017
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf In this timely addition to the Ohio Short Histories of Africa series, Pamela Scully takes her readers from the 1938 birth of Nobel Peace Prize winner and two-time Liberian president Ellen Johnson through the Ebola epidemic of 2014 - 2015.
  2016
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's Twitter
• Women in Power: World Leaders since 1960
  2006