William Richard Tolbert, Jr. (13 May 1913-12 April 1980) was President of Liberia from 23 July 1971 to 12 April 1980, succeeding William Tubman and preceding Samuel Doe.
Biography[]
William Richard Tolbert, Jr. was born on 13 May 1913 in Bensonville, Liberia to a family of Amero-Liberians. He was the descendant of an African-American who left for Liberia from South Carolina in 1878, and in 1971 he replaced William Tubman as President of Liberia. His father taught him Kpelle, and he was the second Liberian to speak an indigenous language after Stephen Allen Benson. Tolbert abandoned Tubman's pro-West policies and aligned Liberia with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the Eastern Bloc, and although he supported the United States in the Vietnam War, Tolbert severed ties with Israel during the Yom Kippur War and supported the independence of Palestine instead. On 12 April 1980, 17 indigenous non-commissioned officers under Samuel Doe launched a coup d'etat against Tolbert and his True Whig Party after he banned the Progressive Alliance of Liberia. He was gunned down in the presidential palace, and the bodies of those killed in the coup were pelted with rocks. Almost all of his ministers were executed in kangaroo courts, except for Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.