Liberia was created by purchase of land by early US anti-slavery proponents, who then offered the country — and in some cases passages to it — to freed slaves. Grateful, those freed named Liberia’s capital Monrovia after then President Monroe. Later, the African-American evangelist Father Devine sponsored a “back to Africa” movement that transported many descendants of slaves to Liberia.

Still, the US, to its shame. ignored the bloodbath that was the Liberian civil war.