View source for Robert Lee (dentist)

{{Short description|Ghanaian dentist from South Carolina (1920–2010)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|honorific-prefix   =
|birth_name               = Robert Edward Lee
|image              =
|imagesize          =
|smallimage         = <!--If this is specified, "image" should not be.-->
|alt                =
|caption            =
|order              =
|birth_date         = {{birth date|df=y|1920|05|13}}
|birth_place       = [[Summerville, South Carolina]], US
|death_date         = {{Death date and age|df=y|2010|07|05|1920|05|13}}
|death_place        = [[Labone, Accra]], Ghana
|restingplace       =
|restingplacecoordinates =
|birthname          =
|nationality        = [[Ghanaian]]
|party              =
|otherparty         =
|spouse             = {{marriage|Sara Archie|1945||end={{abbr|died}}}}
|relations          =
|children           = 2 <!--sons-->
|residence          =
|education          = [[Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)|Lincoln University]]; [[Meharry Medical College]]
|alma_mater         =
|occupation         = Dentist
|profession         =
|cabinet            =
|committees         =
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}}
'''Robert Edward Lee''' (13 May 1920 – 5 July 2010) was a Ghanaian [[dentist]].<ref name="GBN20100703">{{cite news|url=http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/dr-robert-lee-passes-on/|title=Dr. Robert Lee passes on|work=Ghana Business News|date=2010-07-13|access-date=2012-11-03}}</ref><ref name="GhanaWeb20100707">{{cite news|url=http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=186152|first=Elizabeth K.|last=Asante|title=Dentist Championed African-American community in Ghana|work=Ghana Web|date=2010-07-07|access-date=2012-11-03}}</ref> Born in [[South Carolina]] to an [[African-American]] family, he studied dentistry in [[Tennessee]] and then in 1956 [[immigration to Ghana|emigrated to Ghana]] with his wife Sara, also a dentist.<ref name="CSM19970807">{{cite news|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0807/080797.intl.intl.2.html|first=Jennifer|last=Ludden|title=Black American Couple Finds Home in Ghana|work=The Christian Science Monitor|date=1997-08-07|access-date=2012-11-03}}</ref> They were classmates at [[Meharry Medical College]]. They were the first black dentists in the country.<ref>Saidiya Hartman, [https://books.google.com/books?id=u7fkZ5w6am4C&q=%22Robert+Lee%22+dentist&pg=PA36 ''Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route''], Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008, p. 36.</ref> In the 1970s, Lee became involved with a campaign to refurbish forts on the coast of Ghana as monuments to the [[Atlantic slave trade]].<ref>{{harvnb|Gaines|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TyM9WgZChF0C&pg=PA245 245]}}</ref> He lived in Ghana until his death.<ref name="ModernGhana20100720">{{cite news|url=http://www.modernghana.com/news/285336/1/president-mills-informed-of-death-and-funeral-of-d.html|title=President Mills informed of death and funeral of Dr. Robert Lee|work=Modern Ghana|date=2010-07-20|access-date=2012-11-03}}</ref>
==Early life==
Lee was born in [[Summerville, South Carolina]], to parents Samuel Eugene and Emily Holmes Lee. He had seven elder siblings and four younger ones.<ref name="GBN20100703"/><ref name="SJS20100729">{{cite news|url=https://www.postandcourier.com/journal-scene/obituaries/ghana-honors-man-with-summerville-roots/article_e7f4e64e-a53c-5826-8adf-7e41e81f26d5.html|title=Ghana honors man with Summerville roots|work=Summerville Journal-Scene|date=2010-07-29|access-date=2022-08-10}}</ref> His father was a barber, but from that humble start Lee's siblings all went on to a variety of successes in business, engineering, medicine, and other careers.<ref name="SJS20100729"/> Lee did his undergraduate degree at [[Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)|Lincoln University]] in Pennsylvania, where he became acquainted with both future Ghanaian leader [[Kwame Nkrumah]] and future fellow American emigrant to Ghana [[W. E. B. Du Bois]].<ref name="Schramm82">{{harvnb|Schramm|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/africanhomecomin0000schr/page/82 82]}}</ref> Lee went on to [[Meharry Medical College]] in [[Nashville, Tennessee]], where in 1945 he received his degree of [[Doctor of Dental Surgery]]. He married classmate Sara Archie that same year.<ref name="GBN20100703"/><ref name="Campbell2007-p282">{{harvnb|Campbell|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=A8MJfA6OgNkC&pg=PT282 282]}}</ref> The couple moved to [[New York City]] together for their residencies in dentistry, where they had two children: Robert Lowry Lee and Jeffrey Randall Lee.<ref name="GBN20100703"/><ref name="Campbell2007-p282"/>
Lee also served in the [[Medical Corps (United States Army)|United States Army Medical Corps]] beginning in 1950 during the [[Korean War]], in which capacity he was assigned to [[Camp Stewart]] in Georgia, near [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]].<ref name="Campbell2007-p282"/> Lee recounted that, as an officer, he was better-treated than [[African-Americans in Georgia (U.S. state)|black civilians in Georgia]], and for example was never the target of racial violence from police. However, he avoided stopping at restaurants or gas stations on highways, and left the base only with a specific destination in mind where he knew people, or to visit his mother who by then was living in [[Charleston, South Carolina]], rather than going out "on the town".<ref>{{harvnb|Dunbar|1968|pp=73–74}}</ref>
==Emigration to Ghana==
Lee first visited Ghana in 1953, hoping to learn more about his classmate Nkrumah's homeland and see if he could make a contribution to its development. He moved to [[Accra]] with his family in 1956.<ref name="GBN20100703"/> Other Lincoln University classmates and [[Afro-American settlement in Africa|many other African Americans]] followed him in the years thereafter as well, bringing their skills and educations and hoping they could be of use to the newly independent country.<ref name="CSM19970807"/> During [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s visit to Ghana to attend the independence ceremonies in 1957, Lee and fellow African-American émigré Bill Sutherland organised a dinner for him, at which [[Julius Nyerere]] was a guest.<ref>{{harvnb|Gaines|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TyM9WgZChF0C&pg=PA82 82]}}</ref> He became known as the "elder statesman" of the African-American community of Ghana, as well as the country's "unofficial ambassador" to new African-American arrivals who had come in search of their roots.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/emily-raboteau-daughters-of-obama/|first=Emily|last=Raboteau|title=Daughters of Obama|work=[[Guernica (magazine)|Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics]]|date=2012-11-05|access-date=2014-01-29}}</ref>
As Lee later recounted to an American [[National Public Radio]] interviewer, his emigration from the United States was not driven by despair or abandonment of the [[Civil Rights Movement]], but rather attraction to the enthusiasm shown by Ghanaians and their confidence "that they were going to be able to jettison colonial rule" and build up their country.<ref name="GhanaWeb20100707"/><ref>{{harvnb|Schramm|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/africanhomecomin0000schr/page/68 68]}}</ref> Another major impetus was his desire to raise his children in, as he put it, "an environment that is not set up to make him hate himself", where "there isn't even any antiwhite feeling" and they "could grow up freer in their outlook on the world".<ref name="Campbell2007-p312"/><ref>{{harvnb|Dunbar|1968|p=81}}</ref>
==Integration into local society==
Despite Nkrumah's enthusiasm for the [[African diaspora]]'s involvement in Ghana, African Americans who moved to the country faced various challenges, with some accused of being the "fifth column" of American imperialism, and others finding it difficult to bridge the gap between their own identities and their new experience of living in Ghana.<ref name="Schramm1970">{{harvnb|Schramm|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/africanhomecomin0000schr/page/70 70]}}</ref> However, Lee maintained his enthusiasm for the country; he stated that learning the [[languages of Ghana]] was one of the means he used to reduce the distance between himself and his Ghanaian hosts.<ref name="Schramm1970"/> He was naturalised as a [[Ghanaian nationality law|Ghanaian citizen]] in 1963, [[renunciation of United States citizenship|renouncing his United States citizenship]] in the process.<ref>{{harvnb|Warren|MacGonagle|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=nhGqgIyfKfcC&pg=PA94 94]}}</ref>
After the [[National Liberation Council]]'s overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966, many African Americans left the country entirely, but Lee remained, refusing to let himself become cynical about the country's future.<ref name="CSM19970807"/> With regards to those who chose to go home after just a short stint in the country, Lee stated to novelist [[Caryl Phillips]]: "The States has let them down in some way and they expect Africa to solve their problems for them. Africa isn't ready to do that. And maybe they're not ready for Africa. The States has got problems but it's their home. Hell, they're Americans."<ref>{{harvnb|Phillips|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jJxxL5bhY8cC&pg=PT184 184]}}</ref>
There was a Ghanaian dentist by the name Dr. Tosu who was residing in Christiansborg but had a practice in Accra before Dr. Lee came to town(Christiansborg). When Lee moved to Accra, there was only one other dentist in the city, a Lebanese expatriate; Lee quickly put his skills to work by opening up his own dental clinic, using equipment he had brought with him from the U.S. and hanging his New York State dental licence on the wall.<ref name="CSM19970807"/> His wife, also a dentist, started the country's first dental [[teaching clinic]].<ref name="Mwakikagile">{{harvnb|Mwakikagile|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tzkmjezC80kC&pg=PA44 44]}}</ref> Lee credited some the progress made by Ghanaian women in dentistry to his wife, stating that of the 50-odd Africans who had opened dental practices in Accra four decades later, half were women.<ref name="CSM19970807"/>
==Fort Amsterdam restoration==
In the 1970s, Lee was active in the African Descendants Association Foundation (ADAF), which among other activities began efforts in 1971 to lease [[Fort Amsterdam (Ghana)|Fort Amsterdam]] at [[Abandze]] to preserve as a historical monument.<ref name="Ebony197201">{{cite news|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C3VNev1_SpIC&pg=PA89|title=A Shrine To Slaves: Black Americans restore Ghana's old Fort Amsterdam|work=Ebony|date=January 1972|access-date=2012-11-03}} Includes a photograph of Lee.</ref> Lee saw Ghana's slave forts as a symbol and a reminder of his own personal connection to the African continent, as well as that of all other African Americans.<ref name="Schramm82"/> As the descendant of a former slave who had come back to Africa, he felt he had a historical duty to work towards the rebuilding of the fortress. ADAF raised funds for the restoration through a variety of activities, including a memorial service for [[Louis Armstrong]], whose ancestors might have come from the fort's vicinity.<ref>{{harvnb|Schramm|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/africanhomecomin0000schr/page/83 83]}}</ref> Out of the total of US$50,000 sought for the project, by early 1972 Lee and his colleagues had raised about one-fifth of the amount. He stated that he wanted the fort to become "the focal point of the unity of Africans and Western black men. This fort and dungeons will symbolize our long struggle for real freedom, justice, and progress."<ref name="Ebony197201"/> However, as time went on Lee's attempts to raise funds from the United States proved to be less successful than hoped; despite promises by celebrities such as [[Isaac Hayes]] and [[Dionne Warwick]], in the end there was little further enthusiasm among African Americans for his efforts.<ref>{{harvnb|Richards|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=asORYuvznpQC&pg=PA106 106]}}</ref>
ADAF's work surrounding the fortress brought them in conflict with the Ghanaian government, which was trying to raise funds from [[UNESCO]] to restore a variety of historical monuments in the country, and worried that ADAF's emphasis on European involvement in the [[Atlantic slave trade]] would be offputting to potential foreign donors. Indeed, the Dutch embassy remonstrated against ADAF's involvement and complained that the focus on slavery excluded other aspects of the Dutch–Ghanaian trading relationship; the plaque presented by the city of [[Amsterdam]] refers only to "the memory of historic ties between Ghana and the [[Netherlands]]". As a result, on 5 February 1973 the Ghanaian government broke ADAF's lease on Fort Amsterdam and ordered Lee that "any activities should cease forthwith". Further negotiations failed to produce results acceptable to either side, and in the end the remainder of the funds that Lee had raised were donated to the Du Bois Centre.<ref>{{harvnb|Schramm|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/africanhomecomin0000schr/page/84 84]–85}}</ref>
However, despite this setback, Lee continued to remain attached to the forts and to speak out against what he saw as their misuse. In a 1994 lecture entitled "On the Meaning of Slave Forts and Castles of Ghana" at a conference on the restoration of forts in [[Elmina]] and other areas, he described the forts as "sacred spaces" and condemned tourism officials who would see them converted into discothèques or hotels.<ref>{{harvnb|Holsey|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9iuVrICz9Q8C&pg=PA165 165]}}</ref>
==Execution of son==
Lee's son Robert, more commonly known by his [[Ghanaian name|day name]] Kojo, attended the [[Achimota School]], where he befriended the young [[Jerry Rawlings]]. The two would later join the [[Ghana Air Force]], where Kojo attained the rank of [[flight lieutenant]]. After his discharge, Kojo opened a golf course, restaurant, and bar in Accra.<ref name="FBIS">{{cite book|url=http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA368539|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131226021728/http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA368539|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 26, 2013|chapter=Journalist Examines Circumstances Behind Lee, Addy Executions|title=Sub-Saharan African Report|publisher=Foreign Broadcast Information Service|date=1984-11-07|access-date=2013-12-24}}</ref> After Rawlings' second coup in 1981, which established the [[Provisional National Defence Council]] (PNDC), Kojo was at first suspicious of his old friend, and did not speak to him for three months, but eventually accepted the call back to service that the government extended to all discharged soldiers.<ref name="Campbell2007-p312"/><ref>{{harvnb|Adjei|1994|p=132}}</ref> On the evening of 28 October 1983, Kojo went out on patrol with two comrades in the [[Labadi]] [[Neighbourhoods of Accra|neighbourhood of Accra]] to enforce curfew after reports of looting. While on patrol, he shot and killed neighbourhood resident Peter Atsu Bieboo, a fellow [[Ghana Armed Forces]] member on his way to buy ''[[kenkey]]'' with his brother.<ref>{{harvnb|Shillington|1992|p=242}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Adjei|1994|p=133}}</ref> As a result, Kojo was tried for murder.<ref>{{cite court|litigants=The people vrs Flt.-Lt. Robert Kojo Lee|court=Public tribunals of Ghana, Accra, case no. 75/83}} {{oclc|14868105}}.</ref> A fellow prisoner stated that Kojo was at first confident that he would be released, but instead he was found guilty, and was executed on 29 September 1984.<ref name="Campbell2007-p312"/><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19841002&id=MDdWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fugDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2819,494355|title=Friend of Ghana's leader executed|newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]|date=1984-10-02|access-date=2014-01-29}}</ref>
Rawlings was targeted by allegations that he showed favouritism towards friends caught up in the legal system, allegations that even the executions of his friends such as Kojo Lee failed to silence.<ref>{{harvnb|Shillington|1992|p=244}}</ref> Even after the executions of Lee and Rawlings' other close friend [[Joachim Amartey Quaye]], rumours claimed that the executions had not actually been carried out; Riad Hozaifeh later testified to the National Reconciliation Commission that the PNDC then instructed him to film future executions for documentary purposes.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.ghanareview.com/int/nrc2.html|title=I Filmed Executions – Riad Admits|work=Ghana Review|date=2003-03-24|access-date=2013-12-21}}</ref> Lee's wife also died soon after their son Kojo's death.<ref name="Campbell2007-p312"/> Lee's other son Jeffrey moved back to the United States, where he joined the [[United States Agency for International Development]] and later served a stint in Ghana before returning to Virginia;<ref name="GBN20100703"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/x-a083950917|title=Ghana welcomes with open arms: African-Americans who've moved there say life is good|author=Melanie Eversley|work=Detroit Free Press|date=1996-06-23|access-date=2014-01-29}}</ref> Lee would later describe him as "an African learning how to be an American".<ref>{{harvnb|Phillips|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jJxxL5bhY8cC&pg=PT181 181]}}</ref> However, Lee himself chose to remain in Ghana. In the aftermath, he stated: "Everyone thinks I should be angry, I should be this or I should be that ... I just know that living in this society, where I am living now, I feel better. I feel like a person."<ref name="Campbell2007-p312">{{harvnb|Campbell|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=A8MJfA6OgNkC&pg=PT312 312]}}</ref>
==Later activities==
Lee would go on to set up a student hostel programme and guest house, hoping to provide inexpensive accommodation for [[international student]]s from other parts of Africa. He also invested in a variety of other projects, including a farm and a [[driving range]].<ref name="GBN20100703"/> He retired from his dental practice in 2002.<ref name="Mwakikagile"/> In 2007, he donated photographs of Kwame Nkrumah that he had taken in his days at Lincoln University to the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in preparation for the country's Golden Jubilee celebrating the 50th anniversary of independence.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.modernghana.com/news/124165/1/kwame-nkrumahs-photos-donated.html|title=Kwame Nkrumah's photos donated|work=Modern Ghana|date=2007-02-17|access-date=2012-11-03}}</ref> In his aging years, he continued to pay attention to developments in the United States, in particular [[Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign|Barack Obama's presidential campaign]] and subsequent election in 2008. During [[Barack Obama|Obama]]'s [[United States presidential visits to Sub-Saharan Africa|presidential visit]] to Ghana in 2009, he stated that he was happy to see that the United States was making progress, but felt that "Ghana had made progress long before the United States".<ref name="GhanaWeb20100707"/> The [[University of Ghana]]-Legon awarded him an [[honorary degree|honorary doctorate]] in 2008 to recognise his distinguished contribution to public service, making him the second American to whom they had granted such a degree, after W. E. B. Du Bois.<ref name="GBN20100703"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.modernghana.com/news/176519/1/ug-to-confer-degrees-on-cj-ibn-chambas-others.html|title=UG to confer degrees on CJ, Ibn Chambas, others|work=Modern Ghana|date=2008-07-31|access-date=2012-11-03}}</ref>
==Death and funeral==
Lee died aged 90 at his home in [[Labone, Accra|Labone]], Accra, on 5 July 2010. He was survived by his son Jeffrey Randall Lee, his daughter-in-law Naa Ofeibia Saakwa-Mante Lee (the widow of his other son Robert Lowry Lee), four grandchildren – Nana Yao Ababio Lee (whose mother was the first wife of Robert Lowry Lee), Irma Lee, Shekila Lee and Naa Kwale Jones-Quartey (first daughter of Naa Ofeibia Saakwa-Mante Lee, adopted by Robert Lowry Lee) – and two great-grandchildren.<ref name="GBN20100703"/> Lee was [[lying in state|laid in state]] and then given a funeral service at the [[Du Bois Centre]] in Accra on 24 July 2010.<ref name="ModernGhana20100720"/>
==Notes==
{{reflist|30em}}
==References==
{{refbegin|30em}}
*{{cite book|first=Mike|last=Adjei|title=Death and Pain: Rawlings' Ghana - the Inside Story|publisher=Black Line|date=1994-02-15|isbn=9781854210364}}
*{{cite book|first=James|last=Campbell|title=Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005|publisher=Penguin|date=2007-04-24|isbn=9781440649417}}
*{{cite book|editor-first=Ernest|editor-last=Dunbar|chapter=Dr. Robert E. Lee|title=The Black Expatriates: A Study of American Negroes in Exile|url=https://archive.org/details/blackexpatriates00dunb|url-access=registration|publisher=E. P. Dutton|year=1968|oclc=339537}}
*{{cite book|first=Kevin Kelly|last=Gaines|title=American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=2006|isbn=9780807830086}}
*{{cite book|first=Bayo|last=Holsey|title=Routes of Remembrance: Refashioning the Slave Trade in Ghana|publisher=University of Chicago Press|date=June 2008|isbn=9780226349756}}
*{{cite book|first=Godfrey|last=Mwakikagile|title=Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities|place=Dar es Salaam|publisher=New Africa Press|date=January 2007|isbn=9780980253450}}
*{{cite book|first=Caryl|last=Phillips|title=The Atlantic Sound|publisher=Random House|year=2009|isbn=9780307481740}}
*{{cite book|first=Sandra L.|last=Richards|chapter=What Is To Be Remembered? Tourism to Ghana's Slave Castle-Dungeons|editor-first=Janelle G.|editor-last=Reinelt|editor2-first=Joseph|editor2-last=Roach|title=Critical Theory and Performance|date=May 2007|publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=9780472068869}}
*{{cite book|first=Katharina|last=Schramm|title=African Homecoming: Pan-African Ideology and Contested Heritage|publisher=Left Coast Press|date=September 2010|isbn=9781598745146}}
*{{cite book|first=Kevin|last=Shillington|title=Ghana and the Rawlings Factor|publisher=Macmillan|date=1992-02-07|isbn=9780333568453}}
*{{cite book|first1=Kim|last1=Warren|first2=Elizabeth|last2=MacGonagle|chapter='How much for Kunta Kinte?!': Sites of Memory and Diasporan Encounters in West Africa|editor-first=Walter|editor-last=Van Beek|editor2-first=Annette|editor2-last=Schmitt|title=African Hosts and Their Guests: Cultural Dynamics of Tourism|publisher=Boydell and Brewer|date=September 2012|isbn=9781847010490}}
{{refend}}
==Further reading==
*{{cite book|url=http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=african_diaspora_isp|first=Zelle|last=Bonney|title=Where the Chilly Winds Don't Blow: African Americans Return to Ghana|series=Undergraduate Independent Study Project, College Semester Abroad in Ghana|publisher=Williams College|year=1998|access-date=2012-11-03}}
*{{cite news|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=143967298|title=Death Notice: Robert E. Lee, DDS|newspaper=Washington Post|date=2010-07-08|access-date=2014-01-29}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Robert}}
[[Category:1920 births]]
[[Category:2010 deaths]]
[[Category:Ghanaian dentists]]
[[Category:Ghanaian people of African-American descent]]
[[Category:Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) alumni]]
[[Category:Meharry Medical College alumni]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of Ghana]]
[[Category:People from Summerville, South Carolina]]
[[Category:Military personnel from South Carolina]]
[[Category:Former United States citizens]]
[[Category:African-American dentists]]
[[Category:American emigrants to Ghana]]
[[Category:20th-century American dentists]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American people]]