Mercer Senior Survived Civil War, Refugee Camp
Jenna Mink, The Macon Telegraph
Sam Johnson was 9 years old when civil war snatched his childhood. He remembers fleeing from his home in Liberia, barefoot in the dark.
He watched from a mountaintop as his village burned, then walked seven nights through the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on his back. He can still envision the thorns embedded in his skin when he finally arrived at a refugee camp in Guinea, where he grew up in a tent with little food and no public education. It's where he learned to play soccer to escape from reality. It's where he became an orphan.
A week ago Friday, Johnson officially became a U.S. citizen. On May 11, he will become a Mercer University graduate, earning four degrees at once. And by this summer, he will be back at the refugee camp in Guinea.