ABSTRACT
Baccus Matthews was hard to find. Nearly three decades after he led a mass protest against the government in 1979 that panicked the regime and showed its weakness, a weakness preyed upon in a successful military coup the next year, Matthews had become almost invisible. “I think he lives over there,” said one interviewee, pointing toward some old, modest apartment buildings in downtown Monrovia, the capital. No one seemed to have his phone number. Then during one of my interviews in the city, a young man came into the office to fix the air conditioner. I asked his name. “Matthews,” he said. I told him I was looking for Baccus Matthews. “That’s my uncle.” he replied and gave me his number. It was important to find Baccus Matthews. He had showed how one person can nearly topple a government. It took some more research, some more theorizing, and some reconceptualizing of traditional social movement theory to get a clear fix on his contribution to a key social movement and to regime change in Liberia.
