Henry Anthony Madi (1913-1965): A Forgotten Gambian Nationalist

Abstract

Henry Anthony Madi was a Gambian merchant and nationalist politician of Lebanese extraction whose history has been largely overlooked by historians. This article, based on primary archival materials and oral interviews, highlights the pull factors which endeared Madi to the Gambian electorate and also the push factors that motivated him to answer the call of Gambian nationalist politics, despite his race. The scope of this paper is the political and business careers of Madi in the critical period (1947-1960) when the building blocks for Gambian Independence were being laid. This study concludes that Madi deserves historical mention because he was a giant of Gambian nationalist politics whose career must be told and remembered always to help promote an inclusive and tolerant political culture in the 'New Gambia' of the forthcoming Third Republic.

Keywords: Madi, The Gambia, Lebanese, politics, groundnuts