Benjamin and Anita Dennis

A professor of sociology and anthropology, Dr. Dennis is conversant with the dominant and the subordinate groups in both Liberia and the United States. As the son of a Liberian diplomat, Prof. Dennis spent his school years at the Liberian consulate in Berlin and was accepted among white boys of his age. He spent his summers in Liberia — both in Monrovia and in his father’s Mende village of Vahun and his mother’s Gbande village of Somalahun. Dr. Dennis went on to earn a double PhD in Sociology and Anthropology from Michigan State University in 1963. This varied exposure gave him a cosmopolitan worldview that, along with his education, enables him to analyze the highly-charged issues of racism, discrimination and hypocrisy with humor, grace and understanding.A hereditary chief of the Mende tribe, Dr. Dennis has resided in the United States since 1950, where he has mixed in black communities and white communities. His wife Anita K. Dennis has a BA in Sociology with a minor in anthropology and has been accepted into her husband’s Mende tribe. She was instrumental in enabling Dr. Dennis to complete this work.