| The thesis of this dissertation is to show that a close association existed between Church and State in the history of foreign relations of the United States and Liberia in the first half of the twentieth century. During this period, from about 1917 until 1947, Church and State in both countries developed a cooperative relationship to enhance education in Liberia. My case study reveals that this cooperation between Church and State was largely conducted out of public view, and off of the public record. The Methodist, Episcopal, and Lutheran Churches participated in this cooperative project with the State through joint membership on committees and boards that also included representatives from businesses and Church-related philanthropic organizations. I refer to this cooperative venture of Church and State as the Liberia education project. The leading figures in the Liberia education project were Drs. Anson Phelps Stokes and Thomas Jesse Jones of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, Dr. Thomas S. Donohugh of the Methodist Church, and Jackson Davis of the General Education Board. These men formed an Advisory Committee on Education in Liberia, which included representation from three American churches, three Colonization Societies, and the Phelps-Stokes Fund. In 1925 the committee sent to Liberia an Educational Adviser, James L. Sibley, who four years later, in cooperation with the governments of Liberia and the United States, founded the Booker Washington Institute at Kakata, Liberia. Control of this institute was eventually transferred from the Advisory Committee to an American Board of Trustees and a Liberian Board of Managers, and then to the government of Liberia. The Liberia education project was engaged in all of the major issues that confronted Liberia and the United States from 1917 to 1947: racism and slavery (which persisted both covertly and overtly in Liberia), education, tropical diseases and public health, international relations, and the national economy and the development of natural resources (especially the role of the Firestone Corporation). By 1947, the Liberia education project had become the responsibility of the people, government, and churches of Liberia; and of government and business in America. |
