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Head-line source"The Christian Science Monitor"
The failure of the League of Nations and other international bodies to come to Ethiopia's aid as it used spears, horses, and antique weapons against Italian poison gas, machine guns, and airplanes incensed Africans throughout the diaspora. African Americans tried to recruit volunteers to go fight alongside the Ethiopians, established relief groups like the United Aid for Ethiopia, and held large meetings in several major cities, most notably a rally in Madison Square Garden where over 20,000 people showed their support for the ancient nation.(Above Image - of Haile Selassie of Ethiopia)
From London, in the pages of "Blackman", a monthly magazine, Marcus Garvey eloquently described the horrors of the war and criticized the international
black community for lacking unity and failing to be adequately prepared to
come to Ethiopia's defense in time. In August 1935, he wrote:
It is too sad, brutally sad, to see the hopes of a people dashed to pieces by bad diplomacy, by bad leadership; but Abyssinia is not yet conquered. She will not be conquered. She shall be free. It will take time, for Italy is
only stirring up trouble for herself in the future. The spirit of the Negro will never go to sleep. Garvey's predictions about the liberation of Ethiopia (also known as Abyssinia) came true. A British force comprised primarily of Nigerians, Ghanaians, Sierra Leoneans and other Africans liberated the country in 1941. Garvey, however, did not live to see it. He died in 1940.
Italy would also be repulsed from Libya and Somalia by Allied troops.
A number of African Americans who were originally recruited to fight in
Ethiopia finally saw battle as members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the
Spanish Civil War against the Axis-supported forces of General Francisco
Franco. Langston Hughes served as a war correspondent and reported on the
activities of these soldiers for the Afro-American chain of newspapers.
In his magazine, Garvey had noted that when the Italians invaded Ethiopia,
they had used large numbers of African troops in their successful two-year
drive to take the country. Well aware of the valor of African troops, most
of European colonial powers, whether Allied or Axis, used black troops.
Great Britain and France used the most and in roughly equal amounts. It is
worth recalling that the last German troops to surrender in World War I were
East African soldiers under the command of the German officer Paul von Lettow
Vorbeck. The black soldiers, called "askaris", comprised 90 percent of the
German colonial army in Africa. In the Spanish Civil War, General Franco
recruited Moors from North Africa.
Copyright 2001 C.R. Gibbs
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