Maude Amelia Morris, née Lyon (died 1961) was a Liberian women's rights activist and rubber farmer.

Life

Maude Lyon was the daughter of the US Resident Minister to Liberia,

Ernest Lyon Ernest A. Lyon (October 22, 1860 – July 17, 1938) was an African-American minister, educator and diplomat. Early life and education Lyon was born on October 22, 1860, in on the coast of Belize, British Honduras to Emmanuel Lyon and Ann ...

. In 1907 she married John Lewis Morris (1882-1935), who later served as Liberian Secretary of State under Daniel E. Howard in the 1920s. In 1920 she founded the National Liberian Women Social and Political Movement (NLWSPM), to press for women's involvement in the Liberian government. However, President

Charles D. B. King Charles Dunbar Burgess King (12 March 1875 – 4 September 1961) was a Liberian politician who served as the 17th president of Liberia from 1920 to 1930. He was of Americo-Liberian and Sierra Leone Creole descent. He was a member of the True Whig ...

opposed the organization on the grounds that it amounted to the "Americanizing" of Liberian women. In 1932 Morris apparently tried again to organize women, heading a group which petitioned the

national legislature This is a list of legislatures by country. A "legislature" is the generic name for the national parliaments and congresses that act as a plenary general assembly of representatives and that have the power to legislate. All entities included in ...

to amend the constitution and establish female suffrage. "This was likewise treated with laughter and contempt". In 1924 Morris bought some young rubber trees from the Firestone plantation at

Harbel Harbel is a town in Margibi County, Liberia. It lies along the Farmington River, about 15 miles upstream from the Atlantic Ocean.

. After they were successfully planted at the family homestead near Monrovia, a family rubber farm soon started to expand. After her husband died in 1935, her eldest son Harry L. Morris returned to Liberia to help carry on the farm. By 1954 the family had moved to live near Kakata. The farm consisted of almost 3,000 acres, and rubber sales grossed over $100,000 per year. In 1945 Morris was among Liberia's delegation to the San Francisco Conference which established the United Nations. British administrative reports painted a vivid picture of Morris in the late 1940s: She died in her seventies in 1961.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Maude 1880s births 1961 deaths Liberian women's rights activists Liberian farmers 20th-century farmers 20th-century women farmers Americo-Liberian people Liberian women farmers Liberian women activists