The Impact of the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis of 1935-36 on the Pan-African Movement in Britain

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	The Impact of the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis of 1935-36 on the Pan-African Movement in Britain
Author:	Asante, S.K.B.
Year:	1972
Periodical:	Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana
Volume:	13
Issue:	2
Period:	December
Pages:	217-227
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ethiopia
Subjects:	Italo-Ethiopian War pan-Africanism international relations History and Exploration Politics and Government colonialism
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406405
Abstract:	To the key figures of Pan-Africanism, like George Padmore, C.L.R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, Thomas Griffiths of British Guiana (better known as T. Ras Makonnen), I.T.A. Wallace Jobnson, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935 was no less than a second invasion of their homelands. They realised at once that Italy's aggression symbolised not only the powerlessness of the League of Nations but also the triumph of Machiavellianism and the betrayal of the black race. This caused intensification of political activities of Africans and people of African descent in Britain in defence of the Ethiopian cause. The author examines the Pan-African implications of the reaction of the militant blacks in one of the most stimulating and constructive periods in the history of Pan-Africanism - also an important period of transformation of Pan-African ideas - to Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia. The author argues that the pan-Negro responses provided the background to the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester. Notes.