The Genesis of Rabbi Gbaba’s Career and Legacy as Liberia’s “Shakespeare” and Cultural Icon

Fifty years ago, I received a calling from the Lord through a vision on the lower range of the highest mountain (Mount Nimbaa) on Grassfield, Yekepa, when I was a twelfth-grade student at the prestigious Carroll High boarding school run by Irish and English Christian Brothers of Edmund Rice. Kerper Dwanyan and Caleb Domah were members of the Christian organization I established called “Creating Friendship in Christ” (CFC). There were Bill N. Ross, III, Victor Cole, Dr. George Flahn, Edmund Bargblor, Ignitius Taplah, Timothy Grandoe, Linius Geegbae, Joseph Zig Collins, Jr., Allen Cassell, Dr. Henrique Zobon Scott, Robert Freeman, Jr., Ben Freeman, Harrison Yaidoo, Jalloth Wolo, Jr., Charles Samuels, Winston Conteh, Koivah Akwawala, Isaac Collins, Jr., Leon Padmore, etc. These are some of the individuals with whom I lived and attended school.

In this particular year during my senior year, I had a vision during the early hours of the morning and heard a strange voice call out my name: “Joseph”, but when I awoke, I did not see anyone. We lived in cabins and not dormitories as other conventional boarding schools did. All my housemates were sound asleep. I fell asleep and again for the second time I heard that soft whispering sound calling out my name, “Joseph.”

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Those days the Holy Bible was taught in Liberian schools and attending a Catholic Christian school, I was well versed in the stories of the Bible. So, one of the stories that readily came to mind when I encountered this strange event, was the story about Samuel and the high priest Eli. Samuel one night was asleep when he like me heard a strange voice. He thought it was Eli that called him and so he went to the high priest and asked, “Did you call me?” Eli said “No”. Samuel went and lay down and as he was dozing off, he heard the same voice again and went back to Eli. This time Eli said to Samuel, “The next time you heard your name called again, say, ‘Here I am, Lord. I come to do your will.”

The third time when I fell asleep and heard my name called, I jumped out of bed and as if it were the Holy Spirit directing me, I picked up my copy book and pencil and immediately began to write my first drama which I titled, “The Life Story of Kekula” in 1974, fifty years ago!

Fifty years ago, Liberia was deeply divided based on class and ethnicity. There was a great divide between descendants of freed slaves (Americo-Liberians and Congaus and indigenous Liberians that the referred to as “Country people”). Intermarriages among descendants of settlers and indigenous Liberias were rare. It was against this backdrop that God directed me to write whose theme was “National Unity and Integration.”

“The Life Story of Kekula”? was about a Kpelle boy named Kekula whose native parents wanted him to become “kwi” (‘civilized’). They wanted him to learn book and so they gave him to an Americo-Liberian family to be reared and educated. While living in the home of his adoptive parents, Kekula fell in love with his adoptive sister named Susie and she got pregnant, and the family decided that Kekula and Susie must get married so that their grandchild will not be a bastard child. Thus, through this union, the children that Susie and Kekula begot became the symbol of the merger between descendants of free slaves and indigenous Liberians, which makes us one people. This is the central theme of my life history and philosophy as a Liberian intellectual.

Well, God cannot give you a burden that he cannot help you carry. After the play was written I needed to cast it. Most of the cast members including Caleb Domah, Zig Collings, Jr., Robert Freeman, Winston Conteh and Zobon Scott were recruited from the CFC. We needed girls to participate because Carroll High then was an all-boys school. God made a way. Some parents in Yekepa consented for their daughters to participate. Hence, in the month of October 1974, my first play debut at the Open-Door Theatre in Yekepa, Nimba County, Northern Liberia fifty years ago! In the hall was an elementary school teacher named Mrs. Dolly McCritty. She was very impressed and decided to write me a note which read: “Congratulations, Joe. I foresee your becoming the “Shakespeare” of Liberia someday and that is how I got my stage name, “Liberia’s Shakespeare”!

Nine years after I wrote “The Life Story of Kekula”, I, an indigenous Liberian from the Royal Household of the Nien Dynasty of Krhan kings, got married to an Americo-Liberian named Princess Ariminta Porte-Gbaba, from the Porte family that hails from Crozierville, Montserrado County and we got married in a Kpelle city, Gbarnga, Bong County, Central Liberia at the St. Peter Episcopal Church. What a coincidence: I wrote a play whose theme is national unity and integration, married a lady from the Americo-Liberian sect and our children are relatives to both indigenous and settler backgrounds. To crown up my story for the day, today is the birthday of one of our sons named Prince Jacques Tomoonh Yeleyon Gbaba, grandson of Prince Jack Tomoonh Yeleyon Gbaba and Rameses Augustus Porte. This is the kind of Liberia I represent and advocate. Have a pleasant reading experience!

Rabbi Prince Joseph Tomoonh-Garlodeyh Gbaba, Sr., Ed. D.

October 26, 2024

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