The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961

James H. Meriwether

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780807860410
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

The mid-twentieth century witnessed nations across Africa fighting for their independence from colonial forces. By examining black Americans' attitudes toward and responses to these liberation struggles, James Meriwether probes the shifting meaning of Africa in the intellectual, political, and social lives of African Americans. Paying particular attention to such important figures and organizations as W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and the NAACP, Meriwether incisively utilizes the black press, personal correspondence, and oral histories to render a remarkably nuanced and diverse portrait of African American opinion. Meriwether builds the book around seminal episodes in modern African history, including nonviolent protests against apartheid in South Africa, the Mau Mau war in Kenya, Ghana's drive for independence under Kwame Nkrumah, and Patrice Lumumba's murder in the Congo. Viewing these events within the context of their own changing lives, especially in regard to the U.S. civil rights struggle, African Americans have continually reconsidered their relationship to contemporary Africa and vigorously debated how best to translate their concerns into action in the international arena. Grounded in black Americans' encounters with Africa, this transnational history sits astride the leading issues of the twentieth century: race, civil rights, anticolonialism, and the intersections of domestic race relations and U.S. foreign relations.

1 ETHIOPIA

The Italo-Ethiopian War and Reconceptualizing Contemporary Africa, 1935–1936

The most notable reaction of this Italo-Ethiopian conflict is the crystallization of interests of the black people of the world. The violation of Ethiopia’s sovereignty provided the much needed platform of racial solidarity on which all may stand.
Having seen Africa through the prism of its white detractors, Negroes had come to regard it with disdain and disaffection, evincing little or no concern in its people, its history past or future. Today, however, he has an absorbing interest in both Africa and the Africans; he is beginning to be proud of the history of his ancestral land as the film of prejudice is gradually removed from his field of vision.

-Metz Lochard, Chicago Defender, (4 January 1936)

In the years before Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, few black Americans felt they could learn or gain much from contemporary Africans. Even Liberia, with charges of slavery and corruption, had become a tarnished emblem. But in black American reactions to Ethiopia’s efforts during the war, one sees growing linkages being created with modern Africa. The war nurtured a rising consciousness of contemporary Africa and an increasing trend of engaging Africa’s present. Ethiopia’s plight stirred a concern with Africa that cut across social, economic, and political lines. To Garvey and Du Bois, to poor sharecroppers in the South and tenement dwellers in Harlem, the threat to Ethiopia registered. Particularly when compared to African American responses during other crises in the preceding half century, black America’s response to Italy’s assault was one of broad and deep outrage. As journalist and author Roi Ottley reflected a few years later, “I know of no other event in recent times that has stirred the rank-and-file of Negroes more than the Italo-Ethiopian War.”¹

During this crisis, black Americans reexamined their relations with the ancestral continent and expanded their conceptions of ethnicity. Widespread volunteering to fight for Ethiopia, the nationwide springing to life of Ethiopian aid organizations, and lobbying efforts on behalf of the Ethiopians all indicate a wellspring of pan-African commitment in black America, as well as a growth in tapping such commitments. African Americans—expanding their interest in international affairs beyond the traditional leading concerns of Liberia, Haiti, and the Virgin Islands—became the single most important pressure group in the United States pushing the government to act against Italy’s transgressions. In the words of historian John Hope Franklin, with the Italian invasion “[a]lmost overnight even the most provincial among Negro Americans became international-minded.”² Realizing the vulnerability of this bastion of black independence, African Americans used the means at their disposal, such as lobbying the U.S. government and the League of Nations, to help protect Ethiopia. While their success may have been limited, the efforts marked an increase in broader efforts to influence American foreign policy, particularly toward Africa.

Heightened awareness of Africa helped create conditions in which there germinated a willingness to respect Africans, to draw lessons from Africans, and to associate with things African. Yet while the war fostered a new relationship with contemporary Africa, responses differed, too, for black America contained a vast array of views about Africa and one’s relationship with it. Not all black Americans believed the invasion of Ethiopia to be of direct importance, and many argued against being diverted from the domestic struggle. Examining the complex, at times even whipsawing, African American reactions to Italy’s invasion provides insight into the role Africa played in black Americans’ lives at the time, as well as to how much change there would be during the following quarter century.

The Italian Invasion

In the early 1930s, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini conjured up a number of reasons to invade Ethiopia. Certainly his desire to recreate the glories of the Roman past led him to seek lands to conquer and incorporate into an Italian Empire. He also sought to reverse the particularly bitter recollection of Italy’s stinging defeat at the hands of the Ethiopians in 1896. At that time, Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II had repulsed the Italian imperialists at Adowa, inflicting severe losses and securing Ethiopia’s independence. Mussolini in fact used the memory of the battle of Adowa as a rallying point for a fresh attempt at conquering Ethiopia. A handful of imaginary slights, a border controversy, and shopworn appeals to Ethiopia’s need for “civilizing forces” furnished Mussolini the basis for invasion. In early October of 1935, Italian troops poured across Ethiopia’s borders.

Desiring to avoid war and knowing he was at a military disadvantage, Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie turned to the League of Nations and its doctrine of collective security. But the League’s limited response actually became a factor that hindered Ethiopia. The seemingly noble policy of refusing to sell arms to warring nations resulted in an underequipped Ethiopia suffering far more than the Italian war machine. Additional sanctions imposed by the League on Italy were mainly cosmetic, largely because they did not include an oil embargo. Oil was the one import Italy needed to keep its mechanized troops on the move.

Nevertheless, the experts of the day felt that the Italians had assumed a daunting task. They considered the climate and terrain of Ethiopia a match for the invading army. Italy’s few, slow gains in the first weeks inspired joy and confidence among Ethiopia’s supporters, and prompted Mussolini to switch commanders. But the happiness of Ethiopia’s champions proved short-lived, as after the turn of the year Italian forces picked up steam in their drive toward Addis Ababa. The engineering corps made roads out of barren land, enabling Italy’s mechanized power to push through toward the capital. Ultimately, the combination of a virtually unopposed Italian air force, superior weaponry, and Italy’s use of poison gas enabled Italy to advance steadily.

Selassie also faced internal difficulties. Because Selassie had not claimed the throne without some degree of controversy and because he had to contend with traditions of ethnic loyalties, he could not claim unquestioned command of all Ethiopians.³ The need for coalition building forced him to suffer the headstrong ways of some leaders of Ethiopian troops. Despite Selassie and his closest military advisers advocating a guerrilla campaign, certain commanders refused to abandon the tradition of meeting the enemy out in the open, face to face, man to man. Such military decisions left Ethiopian forces more vulnerable than necessary to the invading Italians.

African American Links with Ethiopia

As Italy had readied itself to invade Ethiopia, certain domestic factors in black America had helped prime African Americans to take a deep interest in the threat to this black sovereignty. The emergence of the “New Negro” in the 1920s had led to an increased assertiveness in displaying African American feelings and attitudes, and pent-up anger had been fed by continued racial oppression as well as by economic hardships that the Great Depression exacerbated in the early 1930s. In March 1935, Harlem erupted in riots. The Scottsboro and Angelo Herndon cases continued to drag on, acting as steady symbols of injustice under white supremacy. Responses to the looming crisis in Ethiopia, then, were grounded at least in part in frustrations and concerns within black America.⁴

For black America, Ethiopia stood as a lonely symbol of black achievement, resistance, freedom, power, and ultimately the last, best hope of African independence. The smashing victory at Adowa, which had secured Ethiopia’s independence while the rest of Africa fell under the rule of European powers, had forced the Western world to accord Ethiopia the status and privileges of an independent country. Indeed, the nation’s 7,000-year tradition of independence held special symbolism for all those interested in black pride and freedom.

A number of specific links to Ethiopia further heightened concern for that land. Contacts with the kingdom had been fostered by Ethiopian diplomatic and educational missions sent to America in 1919, 1927, and 1930, and in return approximately one hundred black Americans emigrated to Ethiopia in the early 1930s. These missions raised the level of knowledge and awareness of Ethiopia in the United States and had, in the words of historian Joseph Harris, the “effect of reinforcing African American identification with Ethiopia and Africa.” Further, as the woes of Liberia aired out in public in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the pomp and ceremony of Haile Selassie’s coronation as Ethiopian emperor offered a far more pleasing symbol to African Americans.⁵

Religious connections to Ethiopia also permeated much of black America. With the term “Ethiopia” used as a generic reference for Africa in the King James translation of the Bible, the African American Christian community invested Ethiopia in its modern state with great import. Selassie reputedly traced his lineage to a liaison between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and then obviously further back through those parties. The Ark of the Covenant reportedly resided in Ethiopia.⁶ Most importantly, Psalm 68, a psalm of David that centers on God punishing the wicked while the righteous rejoice and sing praises, reads in part: “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God.” According to Albert Raboteau, this passage stands as “without doubt the most quoted verse in black religious history.” That the verse’s precise meaning is obscure extends its explanatory range, but interpretations of the passage generally take it to represent God’s promise to deliver the entire African race from oppression and to redeem Africa. African Americans seemed destined to be, then, part of God’s chosen people. As one reader expressed to the Afro-American, school teachers and leaders should be teaching the glorious history of Ethiopia because this “will be a great factor in reviving the crushed souls of our race everywhere and in re-establishing such racial solidarity that when ‘Ethiopia stretches forth her hand’ we will be included.”⁷

The religious connection could act as a double-edged sword, however. For those who had ultimate faith in God’s plan, there really existed no need to help Ethiopia, for He would look after that country and its people. The previous defeat of the Italians at Adowa helped convince religiously devout persons that the Ethiopians again would hurl back the Italians and possibly trigger a worldwide redemption of blacks from white oppression. Francis Baker of Roxbury, Massachusetts, wrote that she had no fear because she knew God would ensure that the Ethiopians would win. Even when the Italians entered Addis Ababa, the editor of the religion section in the Daily World wrote that while the Ethiopians may not have a victory yet, one must look further over the hill. God had not let down Selassie; He might in due course allow the European nations to fight among themselves, and then their colonial possessions would be impossible to hold.⁸

Religious connections nevertheless spurred most African Americans to develop a deeper interest in the situation. Churches and church organizations offered both prayers and money for the Ethiopian cause. As the crisis heated up, churches set aside Sunday, 18 August 1935, as a Day of Prayer for Ethiopia. The Mt. Olive Methodist Church of Memphis held an all-night prayer vigil for Ethiopia. Ministers preached sermons on the situation. Reverend Father T. J. H. Alcantara of St. Ambrose’s Church in New York entitled one Sunday sermon, “Choose ye now whether ye shall be actors or spectators in this Italo-Ethiopian drama.” Church organizations condemned the Italian aggressions against Ethiopia and called upon the U.S. government to intervene to prevent war. Churches raised funds for the cause, and organizations established to help Ethiopia, such as the Committee on Ethiopia, had clergymen among their leading members.⁹

Religiosity even infused secular writings on the war. As war clouds darkened, under the banner headline “Troops Mass For War” the Defender offered a boldfaced note: “For an almost exact prediction of the present crisis in Africa and in the whole world today, we ask our readers to read the eleventh chapter of Daniel in the Bible. Here the prediction is made with most startling exactness, even to foretelling intervention of Eastern powers on behalf of Ethiopia.”¹⁰ The Daily World called Ethiopia the cradle of Christianity, observed that people had every reason to believe that Christ was a black man, and speculated that maybe God planned now to bring a new day for all people in the very cradle of Christian civilization. An Afro-American lead article noted that the Ethiopians had driven the Italians back seventy miles as they carried the Ark of the Covenant into battle. Perhaps the most evocative example of religion infusing the outlook on Ethiopia came from Miss B. B. Susaye of Chicago, who asked, “Who can tell but that Joe Louis and Haile Selassie and Jesus Christ aren’t the same man? . . . I just believe He is on his return in this twentieth century in the form of these other heroes.”¹¹

Religiously inclined or not, African Americans routinely invoked a blood relationship between themselves and the Ethiopians as Italian saber rattling grew more menacing throughout 1935. African Americans increasingly articulated an expanded view of their conceptions of ethnicity and clearly included modern Ethiopians within their definitions of race. In fact, many promoted the idea of close kinship as they referred to Ethiopia as the “motherland” or the “fatherland.” Bethune Robinson of Asheville, North Carolina, wrote to the Courier offering a prayer to Ethiopia, “my motherland,” in which she characterized America as her “foster country.” Alexander Keys urged African Americans not to be jovial on Halloween “while our black brothers and sisters of our Fatherland are being slaughtered by Italians and lynched by the American white man.”¹² These letters show an obvious interest in Ethiopia, even as they also suggest that African Americans often did not distinguish areas of Africa in their thinking. The symbolism of the Ethiopian nationhood and the imagining of the African connection overrode any strict genealogical tracing. “I am deeply concerned in Ethiopia’s well-being and why not?” wrote Cable Lockey of Lockland, Ohio, to the Defender. “Am I not one of the sons of African descent? My very soul is grieved for blood is thicker than water. . . . Listen if you please to the cry of our brothers, or are we not the same blood; Isn’t it true that Italy is fighting us?”¹³

Feeling a close bond, any number of black Americans wrote about Ethiopia as though it were their own country. As one “Constant Reader” from Shreveport lamented, “We haven’t sent nearly the money to ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• PROUDLY WE CAN BE AFRICANS
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PROLOGUE
• 1 ETHIOPIA
• 2 IN WORLD WAR AND COLD WAR
• 3 SOUTH AFRICA
• 4 KENYA
• 5 GHANA
• 6 THE YEAR OF AFRICA
• 7 CONGO
• EPILOGUE
• NOTES
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX