William Richard Tolbert III ’77

The Rev. William “Bill” Richard Tolbert III ’77, died Nov. 1, 2021, in Monrovia, Liberia, where he served as National Peace Ambassador. He was 68. 

Growing up in Liberia, Tolbert learned of Cornell College through a family friend, Dorothy Newbury, a Cornell education professor and Fulbright Lecturer in Liberia. He returned to Liberia following graduation, and three years later his father, Liberian President William Tolbert Jr., was assassinated in a coup that led to several decades of civil war and economic turmoil. Tolbert and other family members not slain by the military were placed in a military prison for 20 months and 10 days. In 1983 he returned to the United States to marry his high school sweetheart.

Tolbert received a master of arts in Christian education from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1986 and, over the following decade, he traveled to Liberia to begin the rebuilding process. He moved back in 1999 as pastor of Zion Praise Baptist Church in rural Bentol City, and worked to bring Liberians together in a process of personal and public reconciliation. 

In recognition of his work to unify the people of Liberia, then-President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appointed Tolbert to the role of Peace Ambassador in 2015. Tolbert received Cornell’s highest award, the Distinguished Achievement Award, in 2017.

He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Henrietta, eight children, and nine grandchildren, and other family members including his brother Stephen Tolbert ’83.