African Americans and the Construction of Solidarity with Ethiopia, 1935–1936

Abstract

While practical aspects of African American solidarity with Ethiopia in the years 1935–1936 received considerable scholarly attention, little has been written on the process of the construction of solidarity with Ethiopia, or how African Americans came to think of Ethiopia as deserving of their solidarity. To answer this question, this study analyses several African American publications’ (Afro-American, The Chicago Defender, The Crisis, and Associated Negro Press) articles about the Italian aggression against Ethiopia. To address why African Americans mobilized in thousands to support Ethiopia and expressed solidarity with the African empire, the analysis includes the letters to the editors of The Chicago Defender and Afro-American in the years 1935 and 1936. The process of the construction of solidarity with Ethiopia was based on African American racial identification with Ethiopians, which was strengthened by the appeal of Ethiopia as a historical model of Black nationhood and the religious identification of African American Christians with Ethiopian Christianity. This same process was challenged by a minority of African Americans, who disputed Ethiopians’ Blackness and claimed Ethiopians looked down on other people of African descent. These challenges were successfully countered by emphasizing similarities in the physical appearance of African Americans and Ethiopians, and by reports on Ethiopians’ positive attitude towards African Americans. As African Americans increasingly saw the hypocritical treatment of Ethiopia as analogous to the racist treatment they experienced at home, the moral feeling of ressentiment against racial discrimination spilled into the international arena and strengthened the construction of solidarity with Ethiopia.