William V. S. Tubman was born on November 29, 1895, in Harper, Maryland County, Liberia.
His father, the Reverend Alexander Tubman, was a general in the Liberian army, former Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives, former senator, and a Methodist minister. His mother, Elizabeth Rebecca Barnes Tubman, came from Atlanta, Giorgia, United States.
Tubman attended primary school in Harper, then the Methodist Cape Palmas Seminary, and finally Harper County High School. Later he studied law under private tutors.
Between 1910 and 1917 he took part in several punitive military expeditions, rising in the ranks from private to officer status. He served as a recorder in the Maryland County Monthly and Probate Court and as a collector of internal revenue, and in 1917 was appointed county attorney.
Tubman entered the national political scene in 1923, when, at the age of 28, he was elected senator from Maryland County to the national legislature. He served in this capacity until 1937, when President Edwin Barclay appointed him to the post of associate justice of the Liberian Supreme Court.
An official biography contends that Tubman's elevation to the Supreme Court was designed to remove him from active contention for the presidency. However, Tubman remained active in Liberia's dominant political party, the True Whig party, and by 1943 had risen to such political standing that President Barclay personally nominated Tubman to succeed him.
Tubman was elected president in 1943 and reelected in 1951, 1955, 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1971, for seven consecutive terms. For reasons intrinsic to Liberia's political system, Tubman's presidential opponents never garnered more than a minuscule portion of the votes cast. As president, Tubman's most significant contribution to Liberian politics was his "unification policy, " by which the hinterland counties, previously economically and politically neglected, were gradually brought into the national framework. The inland counties became fully represented in the Congress, roads and amenities were brought to the interior, and, most significantly, hinterland leaders began to play an important role in all areas of government. The open-door policy of Tubman, another major political line of his administration, permitted extensive foreign investment in Liberia's economy, particularly with respect to the development of the rich iron ore areas of Mt. Nimba and in the Bong and Wologosi ranges.
Tubman was a patron or officer in most of Liberia's important civic and voluntary organizations.
He died on July 23, 1971, in London after surgery.
Being the nineteenth president of Liberia, he made efficient management during seven terms and began the transformation of his country into a modern state. Tubman is regarded as the "father of modern Liberia", he is best known for his policies of National Unification and the economic Open Door. He tried to reconcile the interests of the native tribes with those of the Americo-Liberian elite, and increased foreign investment in Liberia to stimulate economic growth.
Tubman was a devout Methodist.
In foreign policy, Tubman aligned his country with the US. Tubman's government was critical of communism and avoided establishing diplomatic relations with most of the communist countries (Yugoslavia, which was regarded highly by the Liberian government, was the lone exception).
Quotations: "Liberian policy is committed to the concept of a free enterprise system, democracy, and a pragmatic search for solutions to problems of multinational existence. We envisage a synthesis composed of individual states retaining their own way of life, but united by mutual exchanges of peoples, goods and ideas, by pacts of non-aggression, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, and of perpetual peace. "
He married Antoinette Padmore Tubman, and had six children, one of whom, William V. S. Tubman, Jr. , was president of the Congress of Industrial Organization, Liberia's principal trade union federation.
