The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir

The mother of Wayetu Moore and her siblings, Mam is the wife of Gus Moore and is a member of the Vai tribe. As one of the “women” referenced in the book’s title, Mam’s influence on Wayetu’s development is indelible. The nickname Mam sonically alludes to her powerful role as a mother figure, is absent for the first part of the novel, as she is working to get her family refugee status in the US. Like her husband, she’s an educator. Her parents sent her away to attend Catholic schools when she was a girl, providing her with the kind of education that eluded many of her peers. Mam was the youngest of five daughters. Her parents, Ol’ Ma and Ol’ Pa (Charles Freeman), lived in Logan Town. Like her, all of Mam’s sisters married but also got educations and careers. Mam and Gus married while they were students at the University of Liberia. Gus was Mam’s first and only love.

During the civil war, she studied history at Columbia University’s Teachers College on a Fulbright scholarship and lived in a Harlem apartment with an American woman named Anne and another Fulbright recipient from Japan named Yasuka, who was Mam’s best friend at the time. Mam gave birth to a son, Augustus Moore, Jr., on October 7, 1990 while living in New York.

Wayetu describes her mother as a strong, beautiful, graceful woman—and one who visibly mourns for her country’s descent into seemingly endless civil wars. Wayetu describes all she learned from her mother: “how to cook, how to write, […] how to care for a home, how to love God, how to read” (119), how to respect herself and others, and the importance of being creative. Wayetu loves both of her parents deeply but depends greatly on her mother for moral support. When the family moves to Spring, Texas, Mam and Gus become Baptists. 

The father of Wayetu Moore and her siblings, Gus is the husband of Mam and is the “giant” to which the book’s title alludes. Wayetu describes her father as a tall man. His heritage is of the Congo and Gola tribes. Like Charles Taylor, he comes from Arthington. When he was seven years old, he was shy and had a stutter. He went to live with his father and his father’s wife in Virginia, Liberia and had a half-brother and half-sister. His father was a member “of the Congo middle class who owned stores and rubber farms” (66); they lived better than rural Congo people but not as well as those in Monrovia. Gus shows great courage when he believes that his life or those of his family might be in danger. He is a key figure during the first part of the novel, when he alone cares for his daughters while facing displacement and war violence.

Like his wife, Gus is an educator who studied at the University of Liberia. He courted Mam when they were teenagers, and they married while they were still students. Soon after their nuptials, they had their three children. During the Liberian Civil War, he worked for the water and sewer company, which put him at significant risk of being intercepted and killed by rebels. In addition, he taught a class at the university and decided to tell the rebels that he was a teacher. Shortly after a coup in Liberia, Gus moved to the US for several months. He supported his wife’s ambitions to get an advanced degree and a career despite the disapproval of their peers. When he and his family move to Spring, Texas, Gus and Mam become Baptists. 

Ol’ Ma is Mam’s mother, Gus’s mother-in-law, and the maternal grandmother of Wayetu and her siblings. She is the mother of five daughters, including Alice and Facia, and eight sons. Three of their children died before they turned 10. She is married to Charles Freeman, or Ol’ Pa, whom she met when she was a teenager. Like Ol’ Pa, she is a member of the Vai tribe. She is of Muslim faith. Ol’ Ma’s father didn’t send any of his daughters to school, as they were expected to work on farms “with their many children while the men sat underneath palaver huts with their neighbors to discuss politics” (90). She and Ol’ Pa moved to Logan Town in 1966, and she ran a shop there. An independent woman, she supported Mam’s ambitions and had a good relationship with Gus. Ol’ Ma is one of the “women” to whom Moore refers in the book’s title. 

Ol’ Pa is Mam’s father, Gus’s father in-law, the maternal grandfather of Wayetu and her siblings, and the husband of Ol’ Ma. He converted to Islam to marry her. He fathered five daughters, including Mam’s sisters, Alice and Facia. He is a member of the Vai tribe. He decided to send his daughters to Catholic schools in Sierra Leone and Liberia and then to London, France, and the US to study further. He and Ol’ Ma settled in Logan Town in 1966 after President William Tubman created a jobs program for rural Liberians. In Logan Town, he worked as a tailor. Moore describes him as “a towering man with a round bald head” (12). After converting to Islam, he wore a kufi. During the civil war, when he takes a boat out of the family’s hiding place at Lai and into a town called Burma to get medicine and supplies, he’s intercepted by rebels who mistake him for a Mandingo leader due to his Muslim dress. They shoot and kill him.

The eldest of Mam and Gus’s three daughters and Wayetu’s older sister, Wi survives the First Liberian Civil War with her father, maternal grandmother, and younger siblings. She’s six at the time. 

The youngest of Mam and Gus’s three daughters and Wayetu’s younger sister, K survives the First Liberian Civil War with her father, maternal grandmother, and younger siblings. She’s three at the time, two months shy of her fourth birthday. Moore describes three-year-old K as a girl with “a charming round face” who enjoys being the baby of the family (8). Later in life, she becomes a psychiatrist. 

Torma, like Korkor, is a family caretaker. She’s a teenage Vai girl and a third cousin from Lai, like Mam and the Freemans. She began to live with the Moores after Mam left for the US. In return for her caring for his daughters, Gus paid for Torma’s education in Monrovia. When she’s not looking after the girls, Torma usually spends time alone studying. 

Samuel Kanyon Doe was born on May 6, 1951 in Tuzon, Liberia. He was a member of the Krahn (Wee) tribe. He graduated in 1971 from the Defense Ministry Radio and Communications School in Monrovia. His early history is otherwise unclear. Some reports say that he was a skilled sharp-shooter and hand-to-hand combat fighter. In 1979, he trained with the US Green Berets and became a master sergeant in the same year, which allowed him to seize control of William Tolbert’s government. Like many indigenous Liberians, he resented the power and prestige that Americo-Liberians enjoyed. He and a group of Krahn soldiers killed Tolbert. After the coup, Doe at once promoted himself as general and as Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of a People’s Redemption Council. He ruled from 1980 to 1990. He had a good relationship with President Ronald Reagan throughout the eighties, due to expectations that he would maintain democracy in Liberia. In exchange, he received aid.

Perceived favoritism toward the Krahn tribe led to resentment toward him and, eventually, a rebellion movement led by Prince Johnson and Charles Taylor. The conflict began in eastern Liberia in late 1989. Even when the rebels advanced into Monrovia, Doe refused to relinquish power. He was then tortured and killed, and his murderers dragged his body through the streets. At the time of his death, Doe had a wife, Nancy, and four children. 

Formerly a lieutenant in the Liberian army, Prince Yormie Johnson (who is of the Mano tribe) fought alongside Charles Taylor and seized power in 1990 after torturing and killing Samuel Doe. Infighting ensued between him and Taylor. Johnson formed his own faction, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), several months after the coup. In 1992, Johnson went into exile in Nigeria. He has since returned to Liberia, where, in 2021, he became head of the nation’s Senate committee on defense and intelligence. 

Charles Ghankay Taylor was born on January 27, 1948. Once a guerilla leader alongside Prince Johnson, he became president of Liberia in 1997 until he was forced to step down in 2003. He was held responsible for war crimes during Liberia’s civil war in the early 1990s and for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Taylor is the son of a judge and has Americo-Liberian lineage, making him a member of the country’s elite. He attended Bentley College in Massachusetts and graduated in 1977. He then returned home and served as director of the General Services Administration under Samuel Doe. In 1983, Doe accused Taylor of embezzlement, and Taylor fled back to the US, where he was arrested and jailed. Before his extradition, he fled to Libya, where he formed the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NFPL), the rebel group that eventually overthrew Doe. The NFPL never seized Monrovia, but the civil war lasted for seven years and killed more than 150,000 people.

As president, Taylor filled the army with former rebels and supported rebel fighters in Sierra Leone. By 2000, Liberia was once again in the midst of a civil war. After a United Nations-sponsored war crimes tribunal indicted Taylor, he went into exile in Nigeria. In 2006, he was extradited and forced to stand trial, where it was revealed that Taylor conscripted child soldiers, ordered amputations of civilians, and dealt illegal diamonds (“blood diamonds”) to fund his wars. In 2012, Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison for his crimes. 

Jallah is a trader who Mam meets on a bus in Freetown while heading to Bo Waterside. He sells things in West Africa that one can typically only find in the US or Britain. Jallah has several wives. He connects Mam to Satta—the rebel in Charles Taylor’s army who rescues civilians in exchange for a fee, of which he takes a cut. Like Mam, he is Vai and has family in Cape Mount. 

Satta, who is one of the “women” referred to in the title, rescues Gus and his daughters and works with Mam to reconnect the Moore family. As a teen, Satta fought with the rebels for Charles Taylor during the First Liberian Civil War. She came from the town of Weelor in Cape Mount, where Mam has relatives. Also like Mam, Satta is a Vai woman. When Mam first meets Satta, she notices Satta’s youth, beauty, and exhaustion. Satta reminds Mam of great women in history. She regards this young rebel as one of history’s unsung heroes. Satta arrives in Lai, where Moore and her family are hiding, to tell them that Mam sent for them to move to US. Wayetu, when she walks with Satta, notices the surety of the young woman’s steps, which to her implies greatness.

Satta is a recurring figure in Moore’s dreams. The young rebel is a symbol of Moore’s survivor’s guilt, for so many other little girls did not get to escape from the war. She yearns to find Satta and express her gratitude for conveying the simple message that saved the lives of Moore, her father, and her siblings. 

Johnny Boy is the nickname that Wayetu gives to a white boy whom she dates while living in New York City. Her nickname for him signals a generic, middle American type. Johnny Boy grew up in the Midwest, on the West Coast, and in New Jersey. He has far-left politics and expresses concern about both police brutality and unrest in African countries. Though he expresses sympathy with Wayetu’s experiences of racism, he occasionally makes thoughtlessly racist remarks and attempts to draw a distinction between her experiences of racism and those of African Americans. She describes Johnny Boy, whom she eventually breaks up with, as reminiscent of the many white men with whom she grew up—“well meaning [sic], painstakingly oblivious of their privilege” (139). 

Moore’s choice to give the character this name is both flippant and thought-provoking. By rendering him generic, she diminishes the distinct individuality of white men and reverses the more typical reference by white people to non-white people monolithically, as Johnny Boy does at certain points in the memoir.