William Tolbert

Two of his daughters are no longer alive. Victoria Tolbert Yancy died in 1971, and Evelyn Tolbert Richardson (the wife of a government aviator) died in Westchester County, New York, United States, in 1993. His widow, former First Lady Victoria Tolbert, died in Minnesota on 8 November 1997 at the age of 81. She had moved to the United States after being released from house arrest in the aftermath of the coup. His grandson Tolbert Williams currently lives and works in the UK.

Tolbert was assassinated in the 1980 coup d'état by the People's Redemption Council led by Samuel Doe, marking the end of 133 years of Americo-Liberian rule in Liberia.

In March 1980 Tolbert ordered the banning of the PAL, and had Gabriel Bacchus Matthews and the rest of the organization's leadership arrested on charges of treason.

In the early hours of 12 April 1980, 17 non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe launched a violent coup d'état; all of them were "indigenous" Liberians who later became the founding members of the People's Redemption Council, the governing body of the new regime. The group entered the Presidential palace and killed Tolbert, whose body was dumped into a mass grave together with 27 other victims of the coup. A crowd of angry Liberians gathered to shout insults and throw rocks at the bodies. Tolbert's body was later moved to a spot in Monrovia's Palm Grove Cemetery, not far from the bodies of those killed in the Rice Riots.

Undisputedly, Tolbert was dead by the end of 12 April 1980, the day of the coup d’état. There are competing stories as to the time and manner of his death.

In early April 1979, Tolbert's minister of agriculture, Florence Chenoweth, proposed an increase in the subsidized price of rice from $22 per 100-pound bag to $26. Chenoweth asserted that the increase would serve as an added inducement for rice farmers to continue farming instead of abandoning their farms for jobs in the cities or on the rubber plantations. Political opponents criticized the proposal as self-serving, pointing out that Chenoweth and the Tolbert family operated large rice farms and would therefore realize a tidy profit from the proposed price increase.

Despite following Tubman's 27-year presidency, Tolbert refused to follow his predecessor's hold on office until death. He successfully worked for a constitutional amendment to bar the president from serving more than eight years in office, and in 1976 he vowed fierce opposition to members of the Legislature who sought to repeal the amendment and again permit what Tolbert called an "evil tradition". Three years later, when True Whig partisans petitioned him to seek the amendment's repeal, he replied that their statement would only encourage him in his previous position: "I will serve my country as long as I have life. I do not have to [be?] President to do so."

Upon becoming president, Tolbert initiated some liberal reforms. Though he was re-elected in 1975, his government was criticized sharply for failing to address the deep economic disparities between different sectors of the population, notably the Americo-Liberians, who had dominated the country since independence, and the various indigenous ethnic groups which constituted the majority of the population.

In May 1975, Liberia became a signatory to the treaty that established the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in order to create a common market in West Africa and promote regional economic integration and stability in 15 West African countries, with the intention that it would mirror the success of the European Common Market.

Some of Tolbert's children live in New York, North Carolina and Maryland. His brother Stephen A. Tolbert served as his finance minister in the government until his death on 29 April 1975, in a plane crash. One of his sons, A. Benedict Tolbert, was killed in the aftermath of the coup: he had taken refuge in the French Embassy but was arrested by members of Doe's security force who violated diplomatic immunity, and he was reportedly thrown out of a military aircraft while being transported to a prison in Lofa County.

Tolbert severed Liberia's ties with Israel during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 and spoke in favor of recognising national rights of the Palestinian people. However, Tolbert supported the United States on the Vietnam War, as had his predecessor, William Tubman. Tolbert was chairman of the Organisation of African Unity from July 1979 until he was killed in April 1980.

Tolbert succeeded to the presidency upon the death of incumbent William Tubman in 1971. To the outside world, the peaceful transfer of power was seen as a sign of continuing political stability in Liberia, a stark contrast with the political turmoil gripping much of the rest of Africa at the time. However, Liberia was effectively a one-party state, with the national legislature and judiciary subservient to the executive branch and only limited observation of civil liberties.

Throughout the 1970s, the world price of rubber was depressed, putting pressure on the Liberian economy. Tolbert brought a new approach to the Liberian government's relations with foreign companies. Companies such as Firestone, which had operated for years without being audited by the government, were audited, and forced to pay millions of dollars in back taxes. Old concession agreements were renegotiated, and new concession agreements were negotiated with an emphasis on accountability of the private sector to the Liberian government.

By the late 1970s, Tolbert became increasingly open to overtures of economic assistance from Libya and Cuba. The Libyans were on the verge of starting work on a low-cost housing project in Monrovia when the project was halted by the 1980 coup d'état.

Between 1965 and 1977 over 100 murders occurred around Harper in Maryland County, many of which involved mutilation and the removal of body parts. During the 1970s Liberians in Maryland County were constantly under the threat of ritual murders. Between November 1976 and July 1977, 14 people had disappeared in the county prompting Tolbert to fire the Superintendent of Maryland County, James Daniel Anderson, for failure to report the missing people and publicly declare "Anyone who kills deliberately: The law will kill that person". Twelve suspects were eventually arrested; seven, including four government officials, were convicted and executed.

Tolbert was an Americo-Liberian and trained as a civil servant before entering the House of Representatives in 1943 for the True Whig Party, then the only established party in Liberia. Tolbert was elected the 23rd vice president of Liberia to William Tubman in 1952 and served in that position until he became President following Tubman's death in 1971. Tolbert's early presidency saw liberal reforms and the adoption of a Non-Alignment stance, but growing economic troubles and tensions between Americo-Liberians and indigenous Liberians led to instability.

Tolbert was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1943, and served until being elected Vice President in 1951. A Baptist minister, in 1965 he became the first African to serve as president of the Baptist World Alliance, and was also a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He became Grand Master of the Masonic Order of Liberia.

He attended Bensonville Elementary School, Crummell Hall Episcopalian High School, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Liberia in 1934. He married Victoria A. David, of Americo-Liberian and Vai descent, with whom he had eight children.

William Richard Tolbert Jr. (13 May 1913 – 12 April 1980) was a Liberian politician who served as the 20th president of Liberia from 1971 until 1980.

Liberia had been a one-party state since 1877. However, in 1973, the country returned to a two-party system when the Progressive Alliance of Liberia, headed by Gabriel Baccus Matthews, became recognized as a legitimate opposition party.

Tolbert was born in Bensonville, Liberia, to William Richard Tolbert Sr. (1869-1948) and Charlotte Augusta Tolbert, nee Hoff of Cape Mount, Liberia. The Tolbert and Hoff families were Americo-Liberian families of African American descent and the Hoff family originated from Virginia. William Tolbert Sr. was the son of Daniel Frank Tolbert, a former American slave from South Carolina who emigrated to Liberia in the Liberian exodus of 1878.