Women dance at Liberian Independence Day event in Monrovia on July 26, 2018, as they await the arrival of President George Weah.
Liberian President George Weah arrives at Barclay Training Center in Monrovia to salute the troops on Independence Day, July 26, 2018. Photo courtesy Images Africa
Harry Ross, a Liberian who believes he descends from Mississippi, stands in front of his church in Brooklyn on Oct. 7, 2018.
The Student Unification Party, led by Butu Levi and Martin Kollie (center), protest the president on July 26, 2018, Liberian Independence Day. Photo courtesy Images Africa Credit: Images Africa
A present-day image of Prospect Hill Plantation in Lorman, Miss taken on July 6, 2018.
Joseph Duo, who was captured in one of the most iconic photos from the Liberian civil war, sits in his yard in Paynesville, Liberia on July 26, 2018.
George Bull, who now works as a taxi driver, has painful memories from fighting in the Liberian Civil War, and loves President Donald Trump’s policies.
Freed African-American slaves signed the Declaration of Independence in the basement of Providence Baptist Church in Monrovia, Liberia in 1847.
Siatta Scott-Johnson is a journalist in Liberia, who produced “Iron Ladies of Liberia,” a documentary about former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who became Africa’s first duly elected woman president in 2006.
Sianneh Beyan, 32, and her 11-month-old son, Charles Allen, walk down a winding dirt road in Liberia to finish laundry. Credit: Ko Bragg

Sixteen tribes with their own unique dialects compose the ethnic makeup of most of Liberia, a country on the western coast of Africa, 5,700 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from the United States. They long predate the freed African American slaves who are credited with founding the country in 1847 with help from the American Colonization Society.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.