Introduction
"Mighty Be Our Powers" tells the remarkable story of Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian peace activist who played a crucial role in ending her country's devastating civil war. This memoir recounts Gbowee's journey from a hopeful teenager with dreams of becoming a doctor to a Nobel Peace Prize winner who helped bring peace to Liberia through nonviolent protest and women's activism.
The book provides a gripping firsthand account of life during wartime in Liberia, the struggles of being a refugee, and the power of grassroots organizing to create change. Through Gbowee's experiences, we see how ordinary women came together to demand peace when men and politicians failed to do so. Her story is one of resilience, courage, and the transformative impact that dedicated individuals can have even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
A Bright Future Interrupted by War
Leymah Gbowee's story begins with her as a 17-year-old high school graduate in Monrovia, Liberia's capital city. She had a comfortable middle-class life, with parents who both had steady jobs and could afford to send Gbowee and her sisters to good schools. With excellent grades, Gbowee looked forward to studying biology and chemistry at university to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.
However, this promising future was abruptly derailed in 1990 when civil war broke out in Liberia. The conflict centered around the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a rebel group led by Charles Taylor that sought to overthrow President Samuel Doe. As the NPFL and other rebel factions advanced on Monrovia, the country descended into chaos.
Within weeks, soldiers were carrying out executions in the streets. Basic services like electricity failed, and food became scarce. The comfortable life Gbowee had known vanished almost overnight, replaced by fear and uncertainty. Her dreams of university and a medical career suddenly seemed very far away.
Becoming a Refugee
As the war intensified, Gbowee and her family were forced to flee Liberia. They were fortunate to find temporary shelter at the US embassy before being evacuated by ship to Ghana in September 1990. There, they ended up at the Buduburam refugee camp outside Accra.
Life in the camp was grim, with oppressive heat, constant mosquitoes, and a pervasive stench. While safe from the immediate dangers of war, the refugees faced difficult conditions and an uncertain future. News trickled in of President Doe's capture and brutal execution by rebels back in Monrovia.
When an interim government was installed in Liberia in May 1991, Gbowee and her family were able to return home. But Monrovia was now a shell of its former self, devastated by the fighting. The university where Gbowee had hoped to study was destroyed. Her plans and aspirations would have to change dramatically.
Personal Struggles Amid Ongoing Conflict
Back in Liberia, 19-year-old Gbowee began dating a man named Daniel. Though not a love match, the relationship provided some fun and normalcy amid the post-war challenges. However, Gbowee soon found herself pregnant. She gave birth to her son Joshua in 1993, followed by daughter Amber just nine months later.
As Gbowee adjusted to young motherhood, her relationship with Daniel deteriorated. He lost his job and began physically and sexually abusing her. Trapped in this abusive situation, Gbowee sought an escape. She found an opportunity through a UNICEF program that trained social workers to counsel war trauma victims. This introduced her to social work and set her on a new path.
But Liberia's fragile peace was short-lived. In 1995, fighting once again erupted between various factions. By April 1996, Gbowee—now pregnant with her third child—was fleeing war for a second time. Along with Daniel and their two young children, she crammed onto an overcrowded Nigerian freighter bound for Ghana.
The journey was nightmarish. Thousands of refugees were packed onto the decrepit ship with no sanitation and barely any food or water. The stench of vomit, urine, and feces was overwhelming. At one point, the ship began taking on water and nearly sank. When they finally reached Ghana, the government initially refused to let the refugees disembark until international pressure forced them to relent.
A New Low Point
For Gbowee, the ordeals continued after reaching Ghana. In June 1996, she gave birth prematurely to her son Arthur. The baby needed an incubator, but Gbowee had no money to pay the hospital. She and Arthur were essentially held prisoner, forced to sleep on the hospital floor for a week until a kind doctor finally covered the bill. Through all of this, Daniel was nowhere to be found.
This marked the lowest point in Gbowee's life. She was a young mother of three, including a premature newborn, with no money or resources in a foreign country. The bright future she had once imagined seemed impossibly far away. Yet it was from this rock bottom that Gbowee would begin to rebuild her life and discover her calling as a peacebuilder.
Return to Liberia and First Steps as a Peacebuilder
When a measure of peace returned to Liberia in 1997, Gbowee gathered her children and returned home without Daniel. She moved back in with her parents, now with three young children and pregnant with a fourth. Her father was upset at her situation, even calling her a "damned baby machine." Gbowee knew she needed to find a way to support herself and her growing family.
In 1998, she began taking classes at Mother Patern College of Health Sciences, working toward an associate's degree. To gain practical experience, she started volunteering with the Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Program (THRP) run by the Lutheran Church.
Through THRP, Gbowee conducted healing workshops in villages, listening to stories from those who had suffered during the war and teaching strategies for emotional healing and reconciliation. She also worked with former child soldiers, some as young as eight, who had been part of Charles Taylor's army.
After a year of volunteer work, Gbowee began earning a modest salary of $100 per month—her first steady income. While far from her original dreams of being a doctor, she found meaning in this new role as a healer of hearts and minds in her traumatized community.
Birth of the Women in Peacebuilding Network
In 2000, Gbowee traveled to Ghana for an international conference organized by the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). There she met Thelma Ekiyor, a young Nigerian woman who proposed creating a women-focused peacebuilding organization. This led to the formation of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), with Gbowee heading the first chapter in Liberia.
WIPNET's mission was to give women a voice in the peace process. While men conducted the fighting and peace negotiations, it was women who bore much of war's burden—hiding their husbands and sons from forced recruitment, risking their lives to find food and water, and struggling to keep their families alive. Gbowee was determined to harness women's unique perspective and moral authority to push for peace.
The timing was critical. By 2001, opposition to President Charles Taylor was growing, and he declared a state of emergency. As families once again prepared to flee, Gbowee made a different choice. She took her children to safety in Ghana but returned to Liberia herself to fight for peace.
With her WIPNET colleagues, Gbowee began organizing protests and distributing flyers with messages like: "We are tired of our children being killed. Women, wake up—you have a choice in the peace process!" This marked the beginning of a women's peace movement that would ultimately help bring Liberia's long war to an end.
Women's Protests Bring War to a Close
As fighting intensified in 2003, there was international pressure for President Taylor to negotiate with opposition forces. But Taylor resisted, and the cycle of violence continued. Gbowee and WIPNET decided it was time for women to take the lead in demanding peace.
They organized protests with a simple, powerful message: "The women of Liberia want peace now!" Crucially, they remained neutral, calling on both the government and rebels to lay down arms and negotiate. In a show of unity, Christian and Muslim women marched together, taking turns singing religious songs for peace.
In April 2003, about 1,000 women dressed in white filled Monrovia's streets chanting for peace. The protests grew too large for Taylor to ignore. He announced peace talks would begin in Ghana on June 4.
Gbowee and other WIPNET members traveled to Ghana to support the negotiations. But talks quickly stalled as warlords enjoyed a de facto vacation in comfortable hotel rooms while fighting continued. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Gbowee and her colleagues took dramatic action. On July 21, they blocked the doors to the conference room, essentially locking the negotiators inside until they made progress.
This act of peaceful protest marked a turning point. On August 11, Charles Taylor announced his resignation and went into exile. Days later, on August 14, 2003, the rebels signed a peace agreement. After 13 years of brutal conflict, Liberia's civil war had finally come to an end—thanks in large part to the courageous efforts of Gbowee and her fellow women activists.
Continuing the Work for Peace
Even with the peace agreement signed, Gbowee knew that maintaining peace would require ongoing effort. She continued her work with WIPNET on various post-war initiatives:
- Partnering with UNICEF to help former child soldiers and other children return to school
- Organizing UN peacekeeping missions to collect weapons and reduce the risk of renewed violence
- Registering women to vote in the 2005 presidential election
The last initiative had a particularly significant impact. With WIPNET's help, the percentage of female voters increased from 15% to 51%. This surge in women's political participation helped Ellen Johnson Sirleaf win the election, becoming Africa's first female head of state in the modern era.
As Liberia stabilized, Gbowee began participating in more international peacebuilding conferences. Recognizing her need for deeper theoretical knowledge, she pursued further education. In 2004, she completed her associate's degree in social work from Mother Patern College. She then attended workshops at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia, eventually returning in 2006 to complete their respected peacebuilding and conflict resolution program.
Growing Recognition and Ongoing Challenges
Gbowee's activism began attracting wider attention. In 2006, she was approached by filmmaker Abigail Disney about producing a documentary on Liberia's "peace women." The resulting film, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Gbowee found herself walking the red carpet alongside Hollywood stars like Robert De Niro—a surreal experience for the activist from Liberia.
The documentary raised Gbowee's profile significantly. It has since been screened worldwide and is used as an educational tool in schools, humanitarian conferences, and churches. Following the film's release, Gbowee received numerous honors:
- The Blue Ribbon for Peace from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government
- The Leaders for the 21st Century Award from Women's eNews
- The Golden Butterfly Award in The Hague, Netherlands
The pinnacle of this recognition came in 2011 when Gbowee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent peacebuilding work.
However, despite these accolades and the progress Liberia has made, significant challenges remain:
- Unemployment stands at a staggering 85%
- 50% of Liberians are illiterate
- The average life expectancy is only 58 years
- Crime, corruption, and poverty continue to be major issues
While industrial growth has resumed and Monrovia's university has reopened, Liberia still has a long road ahead to fully recover from years of conflict and build a prosperous, stable society.
Lessons from Gbowee's Story
Leymah Gbowee's journey from refugee to Nobel Peace Prize winner offers several powerful lessons:
The strength of women in peacebuilding: Gbowee's story demonstrates how women, often marginalized in formal peace processes, can be incredibly effective agents for change. By harnessing their moral authority as mothers and community pillars, women can apply unique pressure for peace.
The power of nonviolent protest: WIPNET's peaceful demonstrations and creative tactics like blocking negotiators in their conference room proved more effective in ending the war than years of armed conflict.
The importance of inclusivity: By bringing together women across religious and ethnic lines, Gbowee's movement gained strength and legitimacy that individual factions lacked.
Education as a tool for empowerment: Despite interrupted schooling, Gbowee continually sought out educational opportunities. This equipped her with skills and knowledge that enhanced her activism.
Resilience in the face of adversity: Gbowee's life was repeatedly upended by war, poverty, and personal struggles. Yet she consistently found ways to rebuild and push forward.
The impact of grassroots organizing: WIPNET showed how local, community-based efforts can create change even when national and international initiatives fail.
The long-term nature of peacebuilding: Gbowee recognized that signing a peace agreement was only the beginning. Her ongoing work highlights the need for sustained effort to maintain peace and address root causes of conflict.
Final Thoughts
"Mighty Be Our Powers" is ultimately a story of hope and the indomitable human spirit. Leymah Gbowee's experiences show that even in the darkest circumstances, positive change is possible through courage, perseverance, and collective action.
Her journey from a teenage refugee to Nobel laureate is remarkable, but what's perhaps most inspiring is how she empowered other ordinary women to become extraordinary agents of change. In a world often dominated by stories of conflict and division, Gbowee's tale reminds us of our shared humanity and the transformative power of working together for peace.
The book also highlights the often-overlooked role of women in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. By giving voice to women's experiences of war and showcasing their unique contributions to peace, Gbowee challenges traditional narratives about conflict and offers new models for creating lasting stability.
While Liberia still faces significant challenges, the fact that it has maintained peace since 2003 is a testament to the effectiveness of the women's peace movement. Gbowee's story serves as an inspiration and a practical guide for activists and peacebuilders around the world, demonstrating that with determination, strategic thinking, and collective action, even the most entrenched conflicts can be resolved.
As readers, we are left with a sense of both the immense challenges facing post-conflict societies and the incredible resilience of those working to rebuild them. Gbowee's ongoing activism—she continues to work for peace and women's empowerment from her current home in Ghana—reminds us that the work of peacebuilding is never truly finished.
"Mighty Be Our Powers" is more than just a memoir; it's a call to action. It challenges us to consider our own roles in creating a more peaceful world and shows that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, individuals can make a profound difference. Gbowee's story proves that with courage, persistence, and the power of collective action, mighty indeed can be our powers to shape a better future.