DUNBAR, JOSEPH FULTON

Joseph Fulton Dunbar was born in the city of Greenville, Sinoe County in Liberia on May 12, 1874.

His parents were George Augustus and Jerusha Agnes Burns Dunbar. He studied for the ministry in the Protestant Episcopal Church in Liberia, first becoming a Deacon in 1898 and a priest in 1900. Dunbar further pursued a career in Government service and education.

He began public service as chief clerk in the Treasury Department, and in 1932 was appointed Secretary of the Interior Department, Acting Secretary of Defense, and Acting Secretary of the Treasury Department at the same time. Dunbar was also appointed to a professor’s chair at Liberia College in 1927, a position he filled with credit and distinction until his retirement in 1930.

He was a teacher at Cuttington College and Divinity School from 1896-1900 and Rector of several parishes and principal of several parochial schools. He was a retired priest in 1950 after a period of 52 years of active service in the ministry. He was thrice married and had thirteen children.

Dunbar is remembered as a prolific writer, an orator and erudite preacher, and learned theologian. He was one of the first religious leaders who preached the need for national unity – the coming together of the tribal and immigrant populations in Liberia.

In his numerous writings, he often dwelt on this theme and would point out examples of inhumane treatment that the tribal population received from the immigrant population. LIBERIA, 1910, an oration he delivered on the occasion of the 57th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Liberia, was a classic political treatise on Liberia.

In it, he set forth his philosophy on how national unity could best be achieved. Though the author was of immigrant stock, his LIBERIA took an added significance as a document of self-examination on the part of the immigrant population and a rethinking of their relations with Liberia’s tribal population.

ABEODU B. JONES