International Trauma Studies Program

By Ellen Gabler
The Columbia Journalist
December 11, 2006

When Jacob Massaquoi was 18 years old, soldiers executed his older brother in front of him.

It was July 28, 1990, and Liberia was in the midst of a civil war spurred by rebel-leader Charles Taylor.

As military men burned buildings and killed citizens, Massaquoi’s family and neighbors tried to flee to a safer spot in the city of Sanniquellie. But a group of soldiers stopped them. Men were told to line up on one side, women on the other.

Massaquoi’s brother had left the military illegally. When the soldiers realized who he was, they shot him in the head. Massaquoi didn’t even flinch, he says. He thought he would be executed next if the soldiers knew they were related.

“Someone had to live to tell the story,” Massaquoi says in a thick Liberian accent.

Today, Massaquoi lives in Staten Island’s Park Hill neighborhood thanks to a grant of political asylum in 2002. He has emerged as a community leader striving to ensure that his story of oppression, and the similar fates of roughly 8,000 Liberian refugees who live on Staten Island, are not forgotten. At the same time, Massaquoi says, he is trying to create a better life for all Liberians on the island.

He spends an hour daily absorbing news on the BBC, then relaying updates about Liberia to people in Park Hill. He’s involved in local politics -- a member of Community Board 1 -- and hints at larger political aspirations someday back in his country.

Walking outside his apartment in the housing projects along Park Hill Avenue, Massaquoi waves to almost everyone passing by. He dips in for a handshake and a slap on the back with a teenager wearing baggy, black clothes and silver jewelry. A few steps down the road he stops to talk with a pastor of a local church. The pastor has a woman who needs help setting up health insurance. Massaquoi says to send her by his office the next day.

As executive director for a program called African Refuge, Massaquoi manages a community drop-in center that helps Liberians adjust to life in the U.S., while not forgetting their African ties. He deals with everything from individual financial problems to referring people for counseling services. They talk about the war, family members still in Liberia, and someday, returning home. He also organizes after-school programs for kids and encourages elderly Liberians to share cultural history with the youngsters. At the same time, the organization offers help to other low-income families on the island, no matter what their race is.

Although he turned 35 in August, Massaquoi looks younger. He is only about 5 feet tall, and smiles often, showing big white teeth. He laughs loudly and frequently, often at his own jokes. He doesn’t have nightmares about the war in Liberia, he says, but sometimes feels sad about what happened. At least six of his family members were killed.

Massaquoi walks with a slight limp in his right leg. That is because 12 years ago, while he was a university student, Liberian military officers pressed the muzzles of their guns under the door of his home and sprayed his leg with bullets. The attack occurred, he says, after his university advocacy group issued a press release calling for the prosecution of people responsible for war crimes.

Massaquoi says that today he plots his future carefully. He goes to sleep at 11 p.m. and wakes up around 3:30 a.m. to do schoolwork. In March he’ll receive an MBA from the online University of Phoenix. When he moved to the U.S., he started online classes because his leg injury made it difficult to get around. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in organizational psychology.

Although Massaquoi is interested in politics in Liberia, he says he doesn’t know what his future holds. So, for now, he intends to pursue education and remain a community advocate.

* * *

Massaquoi grew up in a village with no electricity, running water or paved roads. His father was a farmer who grew coco, rubber and vegetables. When Massaquoi was 6 years old he was sent to “the city,” Sanniquellie, to live with his sister and her husband to go to school.

He thought about politics early in life. “I saw injustice everywhere,” he says.

That included church, where he says corrupt pastors slept with women in the choir, embezzled church funds and extorted money.

By the time he was in seventh grade, Massaquoi listened to the BBC and paid attention to wars and politics. He learned about the transatlantic slave trade, apartheid in South Africa and the Cold War.

“That transformed me, gave me a sense of how the world is,” Massaquoi says.

He also realized how Western countries like the United States could have an impact on Africa, and wanted Africa to have a “just and fair society.” In college in Liberia, Massaquoi started reading Marx, and bought into socialist viewpoints.

By 1989, life in Liberia was shaky. Charles Taylor and a group of trained rebels had entered Liberia trying to topple the regime of Samuel Doe, who had taken power nine years earlier after assassinating President William Tolbert and overthrowing that government.

People on the streets were frequently accused by the military of siding with rebels. A group of young men might be talking about politics, and the next day soldiers would burn down one of their houses, he says.

Massaquoi’s own house was burned down; two days later his father died of a heart attack.

Four years after that, Massaquoi’s leg was pulverized when he was shot by the Liberian military officers. He was bedridden for six months, he says, and sometimes wanted to kill himself. But he thought of his father often.

“I envisioned my father telling me I was strong,” Massaquoi said. “Eventually, I thought I had a lot of potential even if my two legs were cut off.”

So, despite a severe limp, he pushed forward. After Taylor won the presidency in 1996, Massaquoi became more of an advocate against political violence. He says he staged riots and marched 1,000-plus young people into the capital city of Monrovia in protest of Taylor’s regime.

Eventually, Massaquoi says, he became a public figure, so much so that Taylor’s soldiers captured him and tried to intimidate him from speaking out. They stripped him naked, crushed out lit cigars on his skin and tortured his genitals, he says.

By 2002, Massaquoi had had enough. “I was a target,” he says, “so I decided to escape.”

Massaquoi’s exit from the country was coordinated by a group called Front Line: The International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.

He chose to move to the U.S. because of its historical ties with Liberia, and because he thought he could adapt more easily to a society where many Liberians already lived in asylum. But it wasn’t as easy as he thought.

Massaquoi likes to tell the story about the first few months he lived in New York City. He worked in a Brooklyn homeless shelter but hated it. The men at the shelter constantly razzed him, saying that people from Africa ate monkeys and performed voodoo. They called him “African” and a lot worse.

Finally, he says, he approached one of the biggest guys, a 7-foot-tall man who gave him the most trouble.

“Don’t mess with me,” Massaquoi said. “I’ve been pushed around for too long.”

Then he brought up the voodoo. He told the man never to swear at him again, “or I’m going to turn you into a dog.”

As he tells the story, Massaquoi throws back his head and laughs.

That is the Jacob Massaquoi who Jack Saul knows. Saul is the director of the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He first met Massaquoi in 2002, when his organization was doing work with Liberian torture survivors.

Saul said he was struck by Massaquoi’s sense of humor, leadership and concern for social justice.

“He’s very trustworthy, and follows through on what he says he is going to do,” Saul said. “He has a tremendous concern for people in his community and the future of his country.”

Although it may seem odd that a war-crime victim would exhibit so much happiness, Saul said survivors often feel as if they’ve been given a second chance.

For Massaquoi, simply living in the U.S. and learning about democracy is inspiring. That’s why he got involved in local politics.

“When you grow in the system here, and see how the system really works, you can truly practice democracy in your country,” he says.

* * *

In his apartment, Massaquoi keeps a black, leather boot tucked away in the closet. Light brown mud is crusted between the boot and a 5-inch lift built into the bottom. Someday, he wants to display the boot in a glass case in his dream home. He doesn’t want to forget how he wore that boot to level out the difference in the length of his legs before finally receiving corrective surgery in 2003.

Nor does he ever want to forget Liberia’s history -- and the challenges his native country still face.