After 26 years of chaos and war, Liberia, on the shores of West Africa, is reemerging as a beacon of hope in a difficult region. A peaceful democratic transition ushered in Africa’s first woman president, a successful UN peacekeeping effort, and a wave of repatriates eager to build for the future. One glaring blemish on this positive picture is the condition of workers engaged with Liberia’s largest employer, Bridgestone Firestone. The American icon, now a division of a Japanese corporation, is the sponsor of the 2008 and 2009 Super Bowl half-time shows. It also runs the world’s largest rubber operations in Liberia. The country’s fertile soil and stable workforce brought Firestone to Liberia back in 1926. For 82 years, the company has secured a steady flow of rubber from Liberia to the United States through a system based on modern-day slavery.