1. William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman was a Liberian politician.
27 Facts About William Tubman
1. 2.
William Tubman was the 19th president of Liberia and the longest-serving president in the country's history, serving from his election in 1944 until his death in 1971.
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William Tubman led a policy of national unification to reduce the social and political differences between his fellow Americo-Liberians and the indigenous Liberians.
4.
William Tubman was born on 29 November 1895, in Harper, which is located in southeastern Liberia.
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William Tubman was one of 5 children, who grew up poor.
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William Tubman was a descendant of people who were formerly enslaved in the US Tubman's grandfather, Alexander Tubman, was a stonemason, general in the Liberian army, and a former Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives, as well as a Methodist preacher.
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William Tubman required his five children to attend daily family prayer services, and to sleep on the floor because he thought beds were too soft and "degrading to character development".
8.
Emily William Tubman was instrumental in the manumission of enslaved African Americans and paying for their transportation to Liberia for "repatriation".
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William Tubman sought the help of her friend and mentor, Henry Clay of Kentucky, president of the American Colonization Society.
10.
William Tubman was appointed as a recorder in the Maryland County Monthly and Probate Court a tax collector, teacher, and as colonel in a militia.
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William Tubman was a Freemason and belonged to lodges of Prince Hall Freemasonry.
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Re-elected as senator in 1929, William Tubman became the legal adviser to vice president Allen Yancy.
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William Tubman resigned from the Senate in 1931 to defend Liberia before the League of Nations amid allegations that his country was using slave labor.
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William Tubman was reelected to the national legislature in 1934; he resigned in 1937 after being appointed by President Edwin Barclay as associate justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia, where he served until 1943.
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William Tubman was elected president on 4 May 1943, at the age of 48, and was inaugurated 3 January 1944.
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Under the above declaration, William Tubman agreed to expel all German residents and oppose the Axis powers.
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In 1959, William Tubman organized the Second Conference of African States.
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In 1961, following a Pan-African conference held in Monrovia, William Tubman helped to found the African Union.
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William Tubman's government was critical of communism, and avoided establishing diplomatic relations with most of the communist countries ; however, Liberia did exchange trade and goodwill missions with the Soviet Union and other Eastern European states.
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When William Tubman was appointed to the Supreme Court in the 1930s, Liberia was seriously underdeveloped, lacking basic infrastructure of roads, railways, and sanitation systems.
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William Tubman said that Liberia had never received the "benefits of colonization", by which he meant the investment by a wealthy major power to develop the infrastructure of the country.
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William Tubman established an economic policy, known as the "porte ouverte", to attract foreign investment.
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William Tubman encouraged the development of coffee plantations, palm oil, sugar cane, and especially rice cultivation in 1966.
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Under William Tubman, Liberia voted with the US on most key matters at the United Nations, albeit it sometimes sided with other African states, particularly on decolonization and anti-apartheid issues.
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That same year the constitution was changed to allow William Tubman to stay in office for more than two terms.
26.
In 1961 William Tubman declared a state of emergency after riots and a strike took place.
27.
In July 1965, Raymond J Horace and three other individuals involved in the 1955 attempted assassination of Tubman were released from prison.