Page 120 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

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“local self-government for backward groups” (Padmore 1923, served three years in prison, and was deported
1972,109).A delegation headed by Du Bois presented a back to Jamaica. He died in London in 1940.
petition to the Mandates Commission of the League of
Nations calling for the appointment of “men of Negro Ethiopia and
descent” to the Commission, and for the formation of an Pan-Africanism
“internationalinstituteforthestudyoftheNegroproblem” The Italian Fascist invasion and occupation of Ethiopia
(Padmore 1972, 112). (The “Negro problem” referred to between 1935 and 1941 brought unprecedented world-
worldwide racial discrimination,including colonialism.) wide attention to the Pan-African symbol of Ethiopia.
Du Bois was the chief organizer for two more meet- The biblical Ethiopia, as in Psalms 68:31, continued to
ings, in 1923 and 1927.The 1923 meeting took place in be a symbol for the rising hopes for black freedom, but
London and Lisbon. At the London session the resolu- by the late 1890s African-Americans began to gain more
tion adopted demanded that Africans be granted a voice specific knowledge about Ethiopia, the country. One stim-
in their government and access to land and resources and ulus for this increased interest was the Battle of Adwa on
that Africa be developed “for the benefit of Africans, and 1 March 1896, in which the armies of the Ethiopian em-
not merely for the profit of Europeans” (Padmore 1972, peror Menilek II (1844–1913) overwhelmingly defeated
118).The 1927 congress, held in New York City, gener- the invading forces of Italy.As the only military resistance
ated no significant new demands. that successfully preserved the independence of an
Du Bois wanted to hold the next congress on African African country in the era of European colonialism, this
soil and proposed Tunis in 1929, but the French colonial battle was widely reported in the black press and sparked
government refused permission. The worldwide eco- a tremendous worldwide interest in the country. After
nomic depression and the rise of Fascism and Nazism Adwa, diplomatic and personal contacts increased be-
prevented efforts to hold any more Pan-African meetings tween Ethiopians and African-Americans, particularly after
between 1927 and 1945. the young heir to the Ethiopian throne, Ras (Prince) Tafari
Makonnen (1892–1975; known after his 1930 acces-
sion as Haile Sellassie) sent the first official Ethiopian
The Garvey Movement mission to the United States in 1919.
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), a Jamaican immigrant to These increased connections may be illustrated by
the United States, organized and inspired a whole set of the career of Malaku Bayyan (or Bayen, 1900–1940).
Pan-African ideas and activities in the 1920s. His efforts Malaku (Ethiopians go by their first name) attended col-
are primarily significant due to his mass appeal, his lege in Ohio in the 1920s. In 1929 he entered Howard
efforts to stimulate emigration to Africa, and the exam- University Medical School, from which he graduated in
ple he set by forming local chapters of the Universal 1935. He later stated, “My belief in Race Solidarity
Negro Improvement Association (an organization he caused me to select Howard University for my studies,
founded in Jamaica in 1914) around the world. In 1918 in order that I might have a closer contact with my peo-
he founded a paper called Negro World, and he held ple” (quoted in Harris 1994, 22). He married an African-
annual conventions of the UNIA beginning in 1920 that American who was working at Howard, and he traveled
aroused great emotional excitement. His movement back and forth between Ethiopia and the United States
influenced some future leaders of Africa and the devel- in the 1930s.
opment of Rastafarianism in Jamaica and the Nation of After the defeat of Haile Selassie’s armies in 1936,
Islam in the United States. But a steamship line that he the emperor went into exile in England and ordered
started failed, and he was convicted of mail fraud in Malaku “to coordinate the black solidarity movement”