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Biography of Samuel Kanyon DoeName: Samuel Kanyon DoeBirth Date: May 6, 1951 Death Date: September 9, 1990 Place of Birth: Turzon, Grand Gedeh County, Liberia Nationality: Liberian Gender: Male Occupations: ruler, president Samuel Kanyon Doe Samuel Kanyon Doe (1951-1990) was the head of state of Liberia from 1980 to 1990. His seizure of power ended 110 years of rule by the True Whig Party and changed Liberian politics and society in fundamental ways.Samuel Kanyon Doe was born on May 6, 1951, in Turzon, Grand Gedeh County, Liberia. He belonged to the Krahn tribe, which is one of the 16 major tribal groups in Liberia. He attended primary school in Turzon and was later a student at the R. B. Richardson Baptist Junior High School in Zwedru, the capital of Grand Gedeh County. He dropped out of high school in 1967 for "economic reasons."Doe joined the Liberian Armed Forces two years after leaving school. He had his initial military training at the John H. Tubman Military Camp in Todee, Montserrado County, and at Camp Schiefflen in the same county. In 1970 he was assigned to the Third Battalion of the Liberian Armed Forces …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…tortured and killed him. The end of the Doe regime only continued the ethnic warfare in Liberia. Associated Organizations Further Reading There is no scholarly biography of Doe. A collection of his speeches, The New Liberian Society (1982), has been published. Pranay B. Gupte, "The Sergeant Ruling Liberia," in New York Times (April 24, 1980), provides a good general background. Doe is listed in The International Year Book and Statesmen's Who's Who, 1984. For more information, please see Jeffrey Bartholet and Jane Whitmore, "The Last Days of a Bloody Regime," Newsweek (June 11, 1990): 33-34; Stephen Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence," African Affairs 94 (1995): 165-197; Larry James, "A Seven-Cornered Solution?" Africa Report 31 (November-December 1986): 31-33; Reed Kramer, "Liberia: A Casualty of the Cold War's End," Africa News Service (1995); Tunji Lardner, Jr., "An African Tragedy," African Affairs 94 (1995): 165-197; Marguerite Michaels, and J.F.O. McAllister, "To the Last Man" Time (August 20, 1990): 51-52; Bruce W. Nelan, "The Would-Be President," Time (June 18, 1990): 55. |