Leading up to the founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia emerged as an unlikely progenitor of the unprecedented moment. Ethiopia’s rise to the forefront of pan-Africanism was sustained by the influence of Black consciousness in the African diaspora, culminating with the far-reaching activism of Jamaica’s Marcus Garvey.
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One might call Ethiopia’s rise as a key driver of the pan-Africanist movement ironic since Ethiopia had never been formally colonized in the same manner or chronology as the rest of Africa. But Ethiopia had been a symbol of Black liberation and pan-African unity to the African diaspora long before pan-Africanism reached the continent. In addition to Ethiopia’s political status of never having been formally colonized or integrated into the Atlantic Slave Trade, Ethiopia took on spiritual dimensions in the African diaspora—from the life of the Ethiopian Bilāl ibn Rābāh, the close companion of Prophet Muhammad during the seventh century, to the Biblical verse: ‘Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.’ (Psalm 68: 31). Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian nations in the world. As free and enslaved Africans in the diaspora were exposed to Christianity, they began to interpret the foregoing verse as a prophecy that foretold Africa’s rise, leading to a religious, literary and artistic tradition known as ‘Ethiopianism’—a proto-pan-African tradition that simmered through the 19th century...
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