A Day at the Beach

The pool at Kendeja, the $8 million resort of multimillionaire BET founder Robert Johnson.

The New Narratives donor was visiting Liberia from New York, so we decided to hit the beach. There are beaches in Monrovia, but they are generally viewed as unclean, so we ventured about thirty minutes outside the city, to Kendeja, the site of the RLJ Kendeja Resorts and Villas, built by African-American multimillionaire and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson. The road to the hotel is lined with shacks made from sheet metal and plywood. To enter, visitors are asked to pay $10 -- about 5 percent of Liberians' average annual income -- for the privilege of beach access and a pool chair under the generous shade of a palm tree. Security protects the small stretch of beach from wanton intruders. An employee of the German embassy and his wife and poodle and several employees of a Washington-based governance group were the only other patrons, ordering tall bottles of Club beer and BLT sandwiches. Johnson has said African Americans have a responsibility to support Liberia, which was founded by freed slaves, as Jews support Israel. Based on the clientele, it appears the resort was built not necessarily for Liberians but rather for Western do-gooders seeking high-end refuge from the melting hot and crowded streets of Monrovia.