Americo-Liberians are a Liberian ethnicity of African American descent. The sister ethnic group of Americo Liberians are the Sierra Leone Creole people who are of African American, West Indian, and liberated African descent. Americo Liberians trace their ancestry to free-born and formerly enslaved African-Americans (who called themselves Americo Liberians) who immigrated in the 19th century to become founders of Liberia and other colonies along the coast in places that would become Cote d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. Later, these African Americans integrated 5,000 liberated Africans called Congos (descendents of freed slaves from the Congo Basins who never made it to the Americas) and 346 Barbadian immigrants into the hegemony. Like the Creoles of Freetown, Americos rarely intermarried with Natives. For 133 years after independence, the Republic of Liberia was a one-party state ruled by the Americo-Liberian dominated True Whig Party.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born 29 October 1938) is the 24th and current President of Liberia. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d'état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She placed a very distant second in the 1997 presidential election. Later, she was elected President in the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006. She successfully ran for re-election in 2011. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa.

Sirleaf was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work."

Johnson Sirleaf's father was Gola, while her mother had a German father and Kru mother. While not Americo-Liberian by ancestry, Sirleaf is considered culturally Americo-Liberian by some observers or assumed to be Americo-Liberian. However, Sirleaf does not identify as such. Sirleaf's father, Jahmale Carney Johnson, was born into a region filled with rural poverty. He was the son of a minor Gola chief named Jahmale and one of his wives, Jenneh, in Julijuah, Bomi County. Her father was sent to Monrovia, where his last name was changed to Johnson because of his father's loyalty to President Hilary R. W. Johnson, Liberia's first Liberian-born president. He grew up in Monrovia, where he was raised by an Americo-Liberian family with the surname McGritty. Sirleaf's father later became the first Liberian from an indigenous ethnic group to sit in the country's national legislature.

Ellen Johnson is an activist for atheist rights and the separation of church and state in the United States. She was president of American Atheists from 1995–2008.

Johnson has been active in American Atheists organization since 1978. She describes herself as a life-long "second-generation atheist". Her educational background consists of Bachelor's Degrees in Environmental Studies and Political Science, and a Master's Degree in Political Science from The New School for Social Research.

Johnson took over as president in 1995 after founder Madalyn Murray O'Hair went missing along with her son and granddaughter (they were later found to have been abducted and murdered by two ex-convicts, one of whom, David Waters, worked for her organization).

In November 2002, Johnson announced the formation of the Godless Americans Political Action Committee (GAMPAC), a PAC to endorse political candidates who support the separation of church and state. She is the executive director of that organization.

Starting in 1994, she was the co-host of The Atheist Viewpoint, a television program, which is available "on dozens of cable systems throughout the nation and on the Internet."

African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.

African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States. However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.

African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Samuel Kanyon Doe (May 6, 1951 – September 9, 1990) was the 21st President of Liberia, holding office from 1986 until his assassination in 1990. He had previously been Chairman of the People's Redemption Council from 1980 to 1986. He was the first indigenous head of state in Liberian history.

Doe was a part of a rural tribe in inland Liberia. The Krahn are a minority ethnic group but part of the large majority of the Liberian population that are of indigenous descent. These groups faced economic and political domination by the Americo-Liberian elites, who were descended from free-born and formerly enslaved blacks from America who founded Liberia in 1847.

Under Doe, Liberian ports were opened to Canadian, Chinese and European ships, which brought in considerable foreign investment from foreign shipping firms and earned Liberia a reputation as a tax haven.

Doe attempted to legitimize his regime with a new constitution in 1984 and elections in 1985. However, opposition to his rule only increased, especially after the 1985 elections which were declared to be fraudulent by the U.S. and other foreign observers. In the late 1980s, as fiscal austerity took hold in the United States and the threat of Communism declined with the waning of the Cold War, the U.S. became disenchanted with entrenched corruption in Doe's government and began cutting off critical foreign aid to Doe. This, combined with the popular anger generated by Doe's favoritism toward his native Krahn tribe, placed him in a very precarious position.