IN INTRODUCING HIS BOOK ON the early history of the Rastafari movement, RobertA. Hill mentioned the “chronic historical myopia”1 induced by the 1960 reporton the Rastafari movement written by M. G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford. Indeed, despite a few major references,2 research of a historicalnature on Rastafari is lagging behind anthropological and theologicalenquiries. The cost of such disciplinary unbalance is high as “it results in thesubstitution of largely apocryphal statements in place of verifiable historicaldata,”3 and produces a biased knowledge that often relies on particularlyintense relationships between researchers and Rastafari. This essay aims tocontribute to our knowledge of the Rastafari movement between 1937 and1969, crucial formative years when Rastafari evolved from a voice suppressedin Jamaica to one receiving international recognition. The Ethiopian WorldFederation (EWF) is an important organisation in more ways than one: it wasthe first institution to emanate from a political decision made by Haile SelassieI, Emperor of Ethiopia, with respect to the black communities. Notwithstand-ing its fragility, it remains active today. The history of the EWF is totally disregarded despite the fact that it has structured the Rastafari movement inJamaica and worldwide, and that the settlement in Shashemene, Ethiopia, isinseparably related to its existence and function. Weaving together archives,prints and oral history collected in the United States, Jamaica and Ethiopia,this paper dwells on the history of the foundation of the EWF, its establish-ment in Jamaica, and the struggles of Rastafari to be part of it.

73

The Ethiopian World Federation

A Pan-African Organisation among the Rastafari in Jamaica

G I U L I A B O N A C C I

The foundation of the EWF

While war was raging in Ethiopia, a mission was established in 1936 in Harlem,New York, representing several American black associations: the United Aidfor Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Research Council and the Medical Committeefor the Defense of Ethiopia. It was led by Dr Phillip Savory, accompanied byReverend William Imes and Cyril Philips, who made a very discreet departurefrom the United States so as not to be obstructed by American authorities.They went to Bath, England, where the emperor was in exile. The delegatesmet with Haile Selassie, Melaku Beyen and Dr Charles Martin (WorqnehEshete), to whom several documents were delivered, including strong criti-cisms of John H. Shaw, the consul – a white man – who represented Ethiopiain the United States. One pressing request of the mission was to receive a rep-resentative of the emperor on American soil, in order to lend legitimacy tothe actions undertaken by various pro-Ethiopian associations and to channelthe funds yet to be received by the emperor.4 Their request was approved andin September 1936, Melaku Beyen arrived with his family in New York tofound the Ethiopian World Federation. They were welcomed by the delegatesand other black personalities. It was a historic moment, the first fruit of a mis-sion entirely designed and led by Afro-Americans with the view of opposingthe aggression launched by a European nation on African soil.5

Melaku Beyen (1900–1940) had done his preparatory studies in Bombay,India; along with Beshawered Habte-Wold and Werqu Gobene, he was oneof the first Ethiopians to have studied in the United States. All three were reg-istered at Muskingum College in Ohio. Werqu never finished his studies,whereas Beshawered received his degree in chemistry in 1928 and Melaku hisdegree in economy in 1929. Melaku’s stay in the United States was markedby his closeness to Afro-Americans. He recruited the aviators Hubert Julianand John Robinson for the emperor and married an Afro-American woman.6

Melaku was eminently qualified to succeed in the mission of federating thepro-Ethiopian organisations. On his return to New York in 1936, he re-encountered the racialised spaces which had changed little during hisabsence, and set quickly to work. He travelled throughout the United States,organised public meetings, made many speeches, and set up the Haile SelassieFund Drive, aimed at the financial mobilisation of the black lower middleclass and tradesmen in Harlem. The journal Voice of Ethiopia (VOE), whose

74 Giulia Bonacci

75

Melaku Beyen, founder of the EWF (n.d.)

PRIVATE ARC

HIVE, G. ROBINSO

N, SHASH

EMEN

E, ETH

OPIA © RIGHTS RESERVED

first issue was published in January 1937, served as a forum to publiciseMelaku’s actions, to report on anti-fascism, and to teach the history ofEthiopia, as well as offering a directory of the businesses in Harlem and ameans of advertising community activities. To provide an institutional frame-work for these pro-Ethiopian activities, Melaku founded, on 25 August 1937,the EWF whose Local 1, as the head office was called, was situated in NewYork.7 The primary goal of the EWF was set forth thus in its constitution:

To promote the love and good will among Ethiopians at home or abroad in order

to maintain the integrity and the sovereignty of Ethiopia, to disseminate the ancient

Ethiopian culture among our members, to correct wrongs, to end oppression and

to cut out for ourselves and our posterity a destiny worthy of our ideal of perfect

humanity and the aim for which God created us; not only to save ourselves from

annihilation but find our place in the sun; in this effort we are determined to seek

peace and to pursue it, for this is God’s will for man.8

Making an indirect allusion to the call, popularised by Marcus Garvey, toAfricans at home and abroad, the EWF clearly formulated its ambition oftouching the dispersed “Ethiopians”, and thus contributed to nurturing theracial identification linking the Ethiopians from Ethiopia and the black Amer-icans who were supposed to be “the Ethiopians abroad”. The racial solidarityconsidered as a result of this identification had long been advocated byMelaku, and assumed a concrete and material form at that time: “[Since 1921],these two thoughts, racial solidarity and the immortal determination of ourpeople to be free, have become realities and offer the greatest assurance of theperpetuation of the independence of Ethiopia.”9

Local 1 in New York continued its fundraising drives, organised balls andevening events in honour of Ethiopia and the emperor, and invited many per-sonalities passing through Harlem to perform.10 The EWF was structured pre-cisely around “international officers” residing in New York: a president, firstand second vice-presidents, an executive secretary, a treasurer, an organiserand a chaplain. With a few additional members, they formed the executivecouncil. Groups of at least twenty-five persons desirous of forming a localaffiliated to the federation had to apply to the executive council to obtain acharter enabling them to elect their own officers.11 By 1938, nearly ten localshad opened in the United States; in 1939 they rose to nineteen, with twenty-two pending applications for the creation of new locals.12 These branches

76 Giulia Bonacci

opened quickly in the United States, especially Chicago, whose local was veryactive thanks to its president, Harry Broom. Like Melaku, he had spent yearstravelling throughout the south of the country to rally forces to the Ethiopiancause.13 The first international congress of the federation was held in July 1939in New York and allowed many delegates to meet and prestigious guests tospeak. The birthday of Haile Selassie I was celebrated with a great ball andthe congress ended in a parade of the Ethiopian colours organised by ColonelRobinson.14 In 1940 there were twenty-two active EWF branches, includingone in Latin America and another in the Caribbean. The first Jamaican localopened in June 1939, followed in November by Honduras and Havana, Cuba.Moreover, thanks to the impact of its press organ – the Voice of Ethiopia –letters and funds were received by the headquarters of the federation from places as distant as the islands of the Caribbean, Panama, Colombia,Venezuela, Jerusalem, Sudan, Nigeria and Brazil. Whereas the real extent ofthe financial support of the EWF to the Ethiopian cause is hard to estimate,its moral support may be appreciated from the speedy creation of thesenational and international branches. The various branches of the EWF reposed on the historical geographies of

Ethiopianism and Garveyism and drew the contours of a Pan-African spacein which converged the identification of black people with the Ethiopian peo-ple and a global popular uprising supporting the war effort. Melaku Beyenrecognised the EWF’s symbolic debt to Marcus Garvey’s UNIA, but he didso tardily, in 1940.15On 4May 1940, one year before the liberation of Ethiopia,Melaku Beyen passed away due to fragile health. This was a great loss for thefederation, for he had become its symbol and source of inspiration. In additionto his family, he left another Ethiopian, Lejj Araya Abebe, who had joinedhim in New York at the command of the emperor. Araya Abebe had servedas the treasurer of the federation and was in charge of Amharic lessons at theVoice of Ethiopia. After Melaku Beyen’s death, and up until his return toEthiopia in 1943, Araya Abebe remained the sole link between the EWF andthe Ethiopian government.16

Added to this renewed identification between the Ethiopians and the blackpeople of the West, two other elements characterised the EWF. First, was itspan-African perspective, sustained in the Voice of Ethiopia. This was donethrough articles on Ethiopia, Haiti, on the black presence in the United States,in the Caribbean and in Africa. Melaku Beyen wrote in it, “We are out to cre-

77THE ETHIOPIAN WORLD FEDERATION

ate the United States of Africa”, a political slogan which was to remain at theheart of the pan-African issues that arose at the time of the African indepen-dences. Certain branches of the EWF offered classes in Amharic and Ethiopianhistory and published numerous inserts on black “heroes” as well as reviewsof books by W.E.B. Du Bois, George Padmore and Joel Rogers. G. Padmoreand Nnamdi Azikiwe themselves contributed to the Voice of Ethiopia.17

The second element characteristic of the EWF was its ecumenical perspec-tive, which may be illustrated by a meeting held at the beginning of 1955 inthe small theatre of the YMCA in Harlem. There, the EWF presented, to “anaudience composed of Christians, Ethiopian Falasha Jews, Moslem Copts, allin their colourful costumes and headdress”, a forty-minute recording of theEthiopian orthodox liturgy.18 The evening continued with short addresses byEthiopian students and EWF officers, including Mayme Richardson who sang“Ethiopia”, a hymn of her own composition. A film, Focus on Ethiopia, wasalso shown. The cohabitation between these unusual religious persuasions andthe sharing of an Ethiopian liturgical recording amply illustrate the extent towhich the identification with Ethiopia traversed the black congregations.Inscribed in its constitution and in the practices of its members, the religiousaspect of the EWF did not preclude political prerogatives but contributed tomaking it into an inclusive space where members of various congregations,independent or established churches alike, could come together around a com-mon concern for the symbolic and political value of Ethiopia.

The EWF in Jamaica

In 1939, the first Jamaican local of the EWF opened in Kingston at the insti-gation of Paul Earlington. Born in 1912 in the ghetto, he was a “scout” of theUniversal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1925 and found Garveyextremely fascinating. He had heard of Ras Tafari before the 1930 coronation,and a few years later had a “vision of the king” in which Haile Selassie I report-edly told him: “I have a work for you to do.”19 Well acquainted with all thefirst preachers of Rastafari and the militants against the Italo-Ethiopian war,along with a few others, he wrote to the EWF in New York to express hisintention to open a local of the federation in Jamaica. Thanks to a positiveresponse, in June 1939, a year after the great popular rising of 1938, eight hun-

78 Giulia Bonacci

dred persons attended the opening ceremony of Local 17 of the EWF inKingston with L.F.C. Mantle as president and Paul Earlington as vice-presi-dent.20 The Jamaican branch of the EWF acted “to maintain the integrity ofEthiopia” and declared its loyalty “to the cause of universal freedom of Blacks”,but nevertheless requested the protection and assistance of the Jamaican gov-ernment.21However, such a protection could not protect the militants fromthemselves, and the first years of the local were marked by a constant changeof officers. C.P. Jackson, a mechanic, was president in January 1940, andCatherine M. Green succeeded him by February 1940, when the local hadalready registered seventy members. The meetings were attended in eveningdress, in a room rented for £6 a month, and concerts were occasionally organ-ised to raise funds. But Paul Earlington left for the United States and Local17 soon collapsed. Another local, Local 31, was opened with William Powell as president and

a few Rastafari as officers. This new group prevented bearded Rastafari frombecoming members, whereas most Rastafari wore beards.22This discriminationagainst bearded Rastafari might appear secondary, but it underlines, on thecontrary, the importance of appearance. Throughout the history of the move-ment, the treatment of hair was an element of distinction and debate amongthe three categories of Rastafari: the combsome, who combed their hair, thebearded, and the wearers of dreadlocks who were opposed to all baldheads,hence non-Rastafari.23 When Cecil G. Gordon, a more secular activist, took over the presidency of Local 31 in 1942, his refusal to integrate the beardedRastafari into the EWF led to the creation of other informal and non-recognised groups, thus fragmenting the base of legitimacy of the pan-Ethiopian organisation. A Rastafari, long-time officer of the EWF wholives in Shashemene since 1981 explains:

At dem times Rasta wasn’t invited as members [by EWF], we were seen as escapist,

drop out of society, ganja smokers and even denied employment. When we try to

attend a meeting of the EWF . . . we could only stay outside by the window and we

hear dem a deliberate whatever it is. But still dem don’t like our presence, because

what we show dem is HIM [His Imperial Majesty] is the Messiah and yet you have

different religion among them, Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of England, Baptists

. . . that’s why dem can’t have a steady progressive EWF.24

Rastafari had a hard time finding their place within the EWF because of

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their faith, and because the officers who had national and international respon-sibilities and were dominating the administrative relationship within the EWFbetween Kingston and New York were not Rastafari and were reluctant toembrace them. Due to such controversies, the EWF initially had little effecton the movement in Jamaica. Its incapacity to channel Rastafari passion forEthiopia and to integrate Rastafari into its official structures had serious con-sequences regarding the circulation of an important piece of news: land wasavailable in Ethiopia for the members of the organisation. It was by mail that the EWF in Jamaica learned of the existence of land

available in Ethiopia for its members. On 8 July 1950, George A. Bryan, sec-retary of the organisation in New York, informed Miss Iris Davis, the secretaryof Local 31 in Kingston, that the EWF “has been granted land concession inEthiopia” in recognition of the organisation’s support during the years of war,and that a house had been provided in Addis Ababa.25 This letter insisted onthe fact that all EWF members were concerned since a petition had been sentto the emperor on their behalf. Bryan pressed the Jamaican local to assembleits members in order to relay this information and insisted on the qualitiesrequired of the candidates for departure: “only those who have proven or shallhave proven their worth as true Ethiopians”. Two months later, Richard A.Brown, then in charge of the administration of Local 31, wrote to the governorof Jamaica to inform him, in the obsequious language reserved for official cor-respondence, that the EWF in Jamaica was indeed concerned by this donationof land, and asked him for the support of the government with respect toexpenditure required for the journey of the three hundred and fifty membersof the local, since “according to present economic conditions now existing inthe Island we are financially embarrassed and cannot find the necessary financefor transportation”.26 Probably taken by surprise, a week later the colonial sec-retary requested precise details: how many people intended to go to Ethiopia,what was the cost of the voyage and, almost ingenuously, whether they wereall of “Ethiopian descent”.27 In response, the officers of Local 31 confirmedthat all the members of the EWF “[were] descendants of Ethiopians”.28 Onthis occasion, 360 persons were counted – ten more than in the letter of 6September – and still others were announced, probably attracted to the localby this news. Certain they would receive permanent residence in Ethiopia,Brown nonetheless asked for some time to obtain details from the EWF inNew York.

80 Giulia Bonacci

The visit of Bishop Lawson,

international president of the EWF

On 27 September 1950 the Daily Gleaner published the decision taken by theexecutive council of the colonial secretariat to study the possibilities of immi-gration to Liberia and Ethiopia, thus fuelling the rumours on the possibilityof government support. In a hasty exchange of letters and telephone calls, thegovernor was informed of the visit to Kingston of a person in charge of theEWF in New York, and an appointment was fixed between Governor JohnHuggins and Bishop Lawson. Bishop Lawson, of the Church of Our LordJesus Christ, was then the international president of the EWF and had alreadytravelled to Ethiopia.29 He was to become, on 26 January 1951, the presidentof a new American branch of the EWF, Local 26.30Having arrived in Kingstonon 8November 1950, Bishop Lawson had time to meet the officers and mem-bers of Local 31 prior to the official meeting, which was held on 13November.The minutes of this meeting, as reflected in the report of John Huggins, revealthe gap that existed between the EWF in New York and the EWF in Kingston.Lawson, who arrived with business card in hand, began by stating that theterm ‘Ethiopian’ was generic and non-specific, and thus applied to all ofAfrica, and not only to the country of Ethiopia. He conceded that the feder-ation was closely related to Ethiopia and that one of its objectives was toencourage the emigration of people who could become useful citizens. Lawsonwas unable to say how many members had already made the trip to Ethiopiabut insisted on the non-sectarian, ecumenical character of the EWF. In par-ticular, he distanced himself very clearly from the popular religious forms hehad been able to observe during his short stay in Jamaica. As reported by thegovernor: “He told me that he had met some members of the Ras Tafari cultand was shocked at their belief in the Emperor as divine. The Federation hadno connection at all with the Ras Tafaris.”31

This position was devastating: the EWF in New York refused to maintainconnections with Rastafari. Lawson also took the occasion to report that theJamaican members of the federation had the impression the government wasgoing to take care of the travelling expenses of the persons accepted by theEthiopian government. Governor Huggins immediately challenged this idea,by stating that the investigations in progress were “entirely exploratory andmust not be regarded as indicating that assistance will be given by Government

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to emigration to Africa”.32 Bishop Lawson departed extremely disturbed bytwo concerns: the poverty of the Jamaican members and their cultural prox-imity to Rastafari. The position of the New York EWF was then clear: nofinances were to be expected from Jamaican members, and the organisationdissociated itself from the popular practices which had a tendency to amalga-mate its objectives with devotion to the emperor of Ethiopia. Eleven yearsafter the establishment of the first EWF branch in Kingston, the refusal totake into account and to integrate Rastafari into the organisation persistedregardless of their numerical strength and their passion for Ethiopia, thus sig-nalling the tenacious prejudice of this pan-African elite with respect to thesufferers.Notwithstanding the failure of this international contact of the EWF dur-

ing the 1950s, Rastafari and many secular activists were operating in full swing.The formal and informal groups multiplied, influenced by the news of landavailable in Ethiopia. Letters flooded the government, in the image of thoseof Joseph Myers who stated that six hundred members of the EthiopianUnited Body were ready to leave for Ethiopia.33 Claudius Barnes, an officerof the Afro-West Indian Welfare League who had participated in the united1948 UNIA petition, declared that 1,540 members were ready to leave forLiberia and 1,500 for Ethiopia.34 On the destruction of Pinnacle in 1954,founded by Leonard Howell, the dreadlocks flowed into Kingston, residingin the poorest neighbourhoods, squatting on garbage disposal sites and emptylots. During the year of the celebration of the Silver Jubilee, the twenty-fiveyears of reign of the emperor of Ethiopia, a certain visit had the effect of abomb in the small Jamaican society.

The visit of Mayme Richardson,

international organiser of the EWF

Born in 1912 in Michigan, Mayme Richardson was black, Catholic, a sopranosinger and an officer of the EWF in charge of international organisation. Aftergiving a number of prestigious concerts in the United States, she left in 1948to give a series of twenty-two concerts in Palestine, followed by performancesin Cyprus and Egypt.35 She was invited to Ethiopia and discovered AddisAbaba:

82 Giulia Bonacci

83THE ETHIOPIAN WORLD FEDERATION

There’s something strange, strange like magic about putting your foot on the soil of

Africa that gives you a sensation you’ve never had before in your life. I felt it and

experienced it but cannot explain it. Yes, I was completely overcome by the spirit of

freedom, untrammelled freedom! I was at home once more with my people. I felt

happy, secured and moved. It was indeed the land of my heritage.36

The emotion she expressed is hardly astonishing: this was Richardson’s firstencounter with Ethiopia, a land to which her imagination was deeply attached;she found herself in a place where the majority of the population was black,where what differentiated her from others was no longer colour, but language,attitude or attire. She performed before the emperor and was completely fas-cinated by the Ethiopian court, “the royalty of these great Blacks”, by the goldornaments and the pageantry. She reported these words of the emperor inresponse to the spirituals she had sung:

No one could hear you sing and interpret the songs of such a great race without

being deeply moved and touched. They are indeed soul stirring and borne out of

hearts praying and fighting for freedom. I recognise the kinship between American

blacks and our own people.37

The idea of the kinship between Ethiopians and black Americans musthave touched Richardson deeply. The testimony of her visit to Ethiopia waswidely diffused in the press and her account was quoted by African Opinionuntil 1969.38 Before returning to the United States in 1949, the singer per-formed before Georges Merrill, the American ambassador to Ethiopia, touredthe country and also stopped over in Greece, Italy and France. Motivated bythis experience, she resumed her activities in the federation as soon as shereturned. She was present at most of the great congresses of the EWF, foundedLocal 34 in Chicago, to which she gave the name of Princess Tsehay, one ofthe daughters of the emperor, and, above all, ceaselessly diffused the newsabout this gift of land and the possibility of settlement – a prospect whichseemed increasingly feasible.39

The EWF was then at a crucial turning point, one at which its existencewas at stake: most of its officers had been present since its foundation in 1937and were well advanced in age. They had militated during the Italo-Ethiopianwar and since the death of Melaku Beyen in 1940 had been directly involvedin the collection of funds, the diffusion of information on Ethiopia, the survival of the organisation, and some had even travelled to Ethiopia. The

84

Mayme Richardson wearing Ethiopian traditional clothes

AFRICAN OPINION, V

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thirteenth annual convention of the EWF, held in New York in July 1952, celebrated with “honour and devotion” the sixtieth birthday of the emperorand initiated discussions on the state of the EWF. A brilliant speaker, BrotherJohnson, president of Local 12 in Kansas City, asked that the black peopleintensify their efforts to make the federation grow throughout the world.Mayme Richardson, who was more pragmatic, asked for the launching of avast membership campaign, “especially to attract young people”.40 It was notin the United States that Richardson managed to find younger and moredynamic members. Rather, she went to the place where real popular supportof the federation was to be found: in the Caribbean and especially in Jamaica.Richardson arrived in Jamaica in September 1955 where she remained until

the end of October, before visiting other Caribbean islands.41For several yearsshe had pressed the federation to develop its base and to attract new, youngermembers, in order to renew their ranks. A large gathering in her honour wasorganised at Coke Hall where the room was packed and many organisationspresent, including the EWF, UNIA, and the Afro-West Indian WelfareLeague. In 1954 she had met the emperor when he visited the United Statesand she carried a message to the audience, reported by the Jamaican press:

Haile Selassie wanted the people “to know and learn more of their ancient history;

to learn their native language; to know and learn more about their own religion;

and the true fidelity of Christ” . . . There was a land grant now in Ethiopia and

black people could go there and claim a bit. But they had to go in groups.42

Richardson also stated that the emperor was building a fleet which wouldsail from Addis Ababa to the United States and “there was a possibility too,that the ships would one day call here”. The potent symbolism of the boat,which resonated with the character of an insular society, cannot be under-estimated; it acted as an echo of the programme of Marcus Garvey and hisfleet, the Black Star Line. No more was needed to raise the enthusiasm of theassembly, later relayed by the rumour which spread throughout the city. Con-trary to the announcement made in 1950, the federation recognised in 1955that its real base of support was in Jamaica and accepted the invitation toaddress the Jamaican activists. Furthermore, coinciding with the visit ofRichardson, an official letter from the executive committee of the New YorkEWF, addressed to Local 31 in Kingston, disseminated the same information:(1) land had been given through the EWF to the “black people of the West”

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86

who had helped Ethiopia in its time of distress; (2) this land was the personalproperty of the emperor; (3) as the Ethiopian government was not preparedfor a mass migration, the migrants had to be of “pioneer caliber”; (4) peoplewere to leave in groups and to promote a spirit of collective co-operation; (5)professionals (carpenters, plumbers, masons, electricians, and so on) couldhelp the Ethiopians and learn from them; (6) as the EWF in New York wasunable to contribute financially to the journeys, the EWF locals were to raisefunds in view of supporting their members.43

The many EWF locals in Jamaica

This news resulted in a considerable growth of the EWF and of the Rastafarimovement; many informal groups became locals of the federation with thesupport of Mayme Richardson. Cecil G. Gordon left Local 31 to found Local19. These became the two only branches that were officially registered withthe government. The officers of the Afro-West Indian Brotherhood, who hadvisited London in May 1955 in the costumes of Ethiopian pageantry,44

announced that their organisation was to merge with the EWF, to becomeLocal 7.45 The Brotherhood Solidarity of United Ethiopians and the AfricanCultural League merged to form Local 37. Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert mergedhis organisation, the Ethiopian Coptic Faith, with Local 27, and ArchibaldDunkley’s King of Kings Mission became Local 77. Other branches inKingston included Locals 19, 33, 40 and 41, the last being exclusively female.Members of the Ethiopian Youth Cosmic Faith affiliated themselves withLocals 7 and 33. In the country, Local 11 was opened in Rock Hall, St Andrew,Local 32 in Montego Bay, and Local 25 in Spanish Town, the country’s secondcity. The success of the EWF, resulting from news of the land grant inEthiopia, did not, however, guarantee the establishment of locals with insti-tutionally solid and effective administrations. Most locals were short-lived andunstable, and certain ones, like that of Mortimo Planno, functioned only occa-sionally.46Other organisations remained distant from the EWF, in the imageof the Ethiopian body which was later divided into several branches. Certainmembers of the EWF developed their own organisations, while continuingtheir affiliation with the federation.47 Lastly, many Rastafari remained non-affiliated and independent of any collective body.

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87

In this process of multiplication and fragmentation of the EWF locals inJamaica, there were still tensions between locals headed by Rastafari and bynon-Rastafari, and the latter were not willingly sharing the control they hadof the administrative relationship they entertained with the EWF in NewYork. Often, locals headed by Rastafari “became insubordinate to the baldheadinitial charters”.48 The conflict between Rastafari and non-Rastafari was re-formulated in the hierarchy of control and power within the EWF. However,the distinction was never very clear between formal and informal locals dueto the constant fusion and fission between the groups, which sometimes madeRastafari become members of the more established locals. Furthermore, con-flicts between locals, including those composed of bearded or dreadlocksRastafari, were rife:

You have rivalry at the local level, because we’re not following the constitution and

procedures, we were still Rastas. We become enemy of our own thing, ’cause we’re

not behaving to how we should and it’s a business-like corporation. You have con-

ventions, and installations of officers, and duties, but at that level, InI Rastas wasn’t

prepared, I tell you.49

The legitimacy assumed by the EWF, thanks to the announcement of theland donation, was important, but did not suffice to transform the EWF intothe major organisation among Rastafari, whose claim of the right to return toAfrica was increasingly diffuse and pressing. The Rastafari were incapable ofcoordination based on a single institution for reasons related to appearance,organisational methods, and the predominance of charismatic, sometimesauthoritarian personalities, but also because of a lack of previous administrativeskills and by reason of their living conditions. These economic and social con-ditions curtailed the constant and regular commitment to multiple meetingsin various places. The fragmented collective practices, added to the fragilityof the organisations, form one of the enduring structural characteristics of theRastafari movement.

The departure to Ethiopia of Jamaican

members of the EWF

While numerous Rastafari contested the direction of the EWF, which theythought counter-productive, only a few seized the possibilities represented by

THE ETHIOPIAN WORLD FEDERATION

the EWF and sent the necessary documents directly to New York in order tohave a new local opened in 1958, Local 43.50 Local 43 was located on UnityLane in Waterhouse, a poor area of Kingston sometimes referred to as “Fire-house”, and bordered by a gully. Salomon Wolfe headed Local 43 and he was“strictly a EWF brother. He was a businessman, very cool, and he had greatsympathy for those in need. He was a very charitable I-drin and a longtimeRasta.”51 Harold Reid, a resident of Waterhouse and a member of Local 25 ofthe EWF, remembers the “church” of Salomon Wolfe:

Wolfe is a man who have a church, a temple like, keep a likkle service like, and you

a go outside and listen to what him a say. Man deh a smoke herb, bigger man than

me, and hear dem a likkle reasoning. So is deh so now me get my likkle wisdom,

through likkle reasoning, so I get groundation of Africa, cause de man who sit

dung dere a talk two, three, four, a whol’ heap of man did dere fe done a talk, you

know . . .

Dem sitting down were Rastaman?

Yes! . . . They were Garveyites, Bedwardites and Binghi deh deh too, Federation . . .

All the people were speaking of Africa and then we decide we a come Africa . . .

Some talk about Liberia?

Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana man used to talk about, but Ethiopia, speak about

Ethiopia more hayläñña than Ghana and de rest of de country dem. Ethiopia me

say to you.52

Reid used an Amharic term, hayläñña, which means strong, powerful, andconveys the particular place of Ethiopia within the African landscape producedby Rastafari. A witness to the lengthy reasoning sessions held on Unity Laneand the influence of Salomon Wolfe, Reid arrived in Ethiopia in 1973. Even-tually, a committee created by Local 43 of the EWF and composed of sevenpeople travelled to the EWF annual convention in New York in July 1964. Atthis congress, the delegation of Local 43 who had hoped to make the trip fromNew York to Ethiopia were faced with the reality that the “EWF, as a Back-to-Africa organisation, international in scope does not have a repatriation com-mittee”.53 In New York, they realised that return was not the primary objectiveof the EWF. Nothing in the EWF’s constitution ascribed this role, and Amer-ican members, who were both small in number and older in age than the Jamaicans, were in no hurry to go to Ethiopia. An important distinction

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can clarify the objectives of Rastafari as compared with those of American andnon-Rastafari members of the EWF:

The Rastafarians have always claimed that Ethiopia is their rightful heritage and

their ultimate goal is to sit under their own ‘vine and fig tree’. The Land Grant

therefore was considered by the Rastafarians to be a direct fulfilment of prophecy.

They were convinced that the time had come for the sons of Africa to return. In

short, to the EWF, Inc., the Back-to-Africa movement meant migration; to the

Rastafarians, repatriation.54

If Rastafari saw repatriation as different from migration, it was mainlybecause of their spiritual perspective. Land had been granted by the emperorhimself and, given the special relationship they believed they had with him,Rastafari defended the idea that the gift was specifically addressed to them.Thus, land in Shashemene became a powerful argument for repatriation, inter-preted literally through the lens of biblical prophecies about the return toIsrael. As a result, Rastafari viewed repatriation as a divine operation that onlyJah could cause to occur – not the Jamaican government. This was the theo-logical function of the return, which had often resulted in a certain passivityand a culture of waiting and expectation.55

However, not all Rastafari were passively or mystically waiting. Some tooksteps to make return happen, and, by extension, make the prophecy real –after all, the land was there in Ethiopia and available to members of the EWF.Facing the necessity to rely only on themselves, members of Local 43 joinedwith Local 31, which at the time had large numbers of members.56 Theylaunched an appeal for funds, with the support of the international presidentof the EWF, Cester Garden, and the authorisation of the prime minister ofJamaica, Dr Donald Sangster. The objective was to “transport pioneers andto help settle them and develop the land at Shashamane”.57 A Rastafari, ZepthaMalcolm, contributed more than half the funds and Local 31 contributedalmost one third. Other subscribers were five individuals and four companies.But once the funds were collected to finance the trip, a fundamental questionarose: who was ready to go?A woman was ready, Carmen Clarke, born in 1934 in St Mary, who grew

up in Jones Town and lived in Trench Town, Kingston. A Rastafari, she wasan active and militant volunteer in her community. Well-read, she often filledin the position of secretary and wrote letters on behalf of the EWF.58 Sheremembers:

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The local I was living with before, number 31, has a lot of members, whole heap of

members, I think people dem they ready to accept the doctrine and the preaching

of Ethiopia through the federation down there but their mind, their mind wasn’t

ready for Ethiopia. Because when I ready to come to Ethiopia, there was people who

in that local, years upon years who died, you know, even some before I left, they

were in the local going night and day, going all round and they didn’t ready, they

never even have a passport when the calling come, the local is going to send people

to Ethiopia, some of them no have a passport. Being in the local for years, singing

“send me back to Ethiopia land” but they didn’t ready, their mind didn’t ready,

[just] their mouth talking.59

The importance of Local 31 in Clarke’s life is clearly emphasised. It waswhere she lived, where most of her activities converged and where her socialrelationships were formed. Clarke criticised the majority of members of thelocal. They spent a lot of time there, always talking about Ethiopia, but didnot take the possibility of departure seriously. This general unpreparedness ofthe majority of Local 31members illustrates how difficult it was to move fromrhetoric to practice. For most individuals, Rastafari or not, “back to Africa”remained a slogan, a claim closely related to their status as impoverished andmarginalised black people, a tenacious critique of Jamaican society. But Clarketook the idea literally. She was thirty-five years old and ready:

Once I started and get the doctrine, I’m ready, I’m ready to take the trip, all my

friends, outside [of] Federation [say] “you crazy, where are you going to Africa, peo-

ple are starving to death” and they talk. I say OK, it’s alright, let me go and see for

myself.60

She was determined. Thinking back about those who stayed behind, Clarkewas still wondering what was the value of all those sermons over the years, allthese words, if they were not followed by concrete action when the opportu-nity arose. She represented an “old generation” of Rastafari: devout, militantand without dreadlocks – like most of those with whom she travelled. Thisgroup of five adults and a child were from Locals 31 and 43. Some membersof the group delayed their departure because of problems with passports, buton 5 September 1969 they left, finally, via New York. The Daily Gleaner ranthe headline “Mission off to Develop 700 Acres in Ethiopia”.61 There wasClarke, the only woman and unmarried, and Zeptha Malcolm, a dreadlocksRastafari born in Cuba in 1927 to a Jamaican mother and a Cuban father,

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who had arrived in Jamaica at the age of seventeen. He was a constructionworker who had seven children with two women, but only one of his daugh-ters accompanied him to Ethiopia.62 Frederick Pryce changed his mind whilein New York, and he returned to Jamaica. Gerald Brissett was a skilled worker,and Salomon Wolfe made the trip as he was president of Local 43. They allhad to invest their own money to pay for their trip, as fundraising had beeninsufficient. The group stayed for eleven days in New York where they were baptised

into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. After stopovers in Athens and Nairobi,they arrived in Addis Ababa, and despite some difficulties related to vaccina-tions they were allowed to disembark. They were followed a few weeks laterby the head of the Jamaican government, Jamaica Labour Party leader HughShearer, and by the representative of the opposition People’s National Party,Michael Manley.63 Conscious of the importance of the trip in the Jamaicanpopular imagination, the politicians could not miss the opportunity to alignthemselves with the issue of repatriation, an issue that had been set aside sincethe independence of Jamaica. This 1969 group joined the first group of ‘pioneers’ who had arrived the

previous year.64 The newcomers had made the trip to Ethiopia under the aus-pices of the EWF, even if they had to oppose the international officers, findtheir own funding, and transform the organisation from the ground up so asto achieve their purpose. When Cecil Gordon, president of Local 19, returnedfrom the first Back-to-Africa Mission in 1961, he boasted of being able toorganise the departure to the mainland without the consent of the government– something he never did.65Eight years later, in 1969, Rastafari were successful,and they became the first Jamaican members of the EWF to settle inShashemene. They would eventually be followed by other settlers, includingmembers of Local 15, which was soon to become internationally known as theTwelve Tribes of Israel.

Conclusion

This essay has demonstrated that the EWF, a pan-African organisationfounded during the Italo-Ethiopian war, came to embody the aspiration ofthe black people of the world identifying with the Ethiopian cause. Of an ecu-menical character, its activities were at first focused on gathering the moral

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and financial support of black people to the Ethiopian war effort. As early as1939, locals of the EWF were opened in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1950, land wasgranted in Shashemene, Ethiopia, by Emperor Haile Selassie I to the membersof the EWF as a token of appreciation for their support. However by then,EWF membership in the United States was aging, and it is in Jamaica thatpopular interest and support was found. A first visit of an international officerof the EWF in 1950 illustrated the reluctance of the pan-African elite to embraceRastafari militants. It was only in 1955, through Mayme Richardson, that theEWF addressed itself directly to the Jamaican members and sympathisers. InJamaica, Rastafari had to struggle to become a part of the EWF membership.Rejected by secular EWF officers, they were eventually able to get their ownlocals functioning. This appropriation of the EWF by Rastafari had a conse-quence: a rapid growth and fragmentation of EWF locals in Jamaica.Rastafari is often qualified as an acephalous movement66 that survives

because it refuses centralised organisation for the sake of ultimate individualfreedom. While the diversity of ritual, cultural and social practices amongRastafari is real, it is not possible to deny the constant effort of Rastafari toorganise themselves along structures like the EWF, even if that implies, atfirst, having to oppose the ones controlling such structures. Thanks to anapproach based on historical data, the articulation between a pan-Africanorganisation, the Rastafari movement and the return to Ethiopia is thusunveiled.

NOTES

1. Robert A. Hill, Dread History: Leonard P. Howell and Millenarian Visions in the EarlyRastafarian Religion (Chicago, IL: Research Associates; Kingston: School Times Publications and Miguel Lorne, 2001), 13.

2. For examples of references, see Hill, Dread History; Frank Jan van Dijk, JahmaicaRastafari and Wider Society, 1930–1990 (Utrecht: ISOR, 1993); and Giulia Bonacci,Exodus! L’histoire du retour des Rastafariens en Ethiopie (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010).

3. Hill, Dread History, 14.4. Joseph Harris, African-American Reactions to War in Ethiopia, 1936–1941 (Baton

Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994), 104–19.5. Ibid., 120.6. Bahru Zewde, Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early

92 Giulia Bonacci

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Twentieth Century (London: James Currey; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press;Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press, 2002), 89–91.

7. G.H. Blackett, M.E. Gardner and the wife of Melaku, Dorothy Beyen, were nominated presidents up until the first annual meeting of the organisation. AidaBastian and Eudora Paris, who had lived in Ethiopia in the early 1930s, signed aswell the Certificate of Incorporation of the EWF, dated 28 July 1937. Private archives,G. Robinson, Shashemene.

8. EWF Inc., Constitution and By-laws (1937: Article I, Section 2 [a]).9. Melaku Bayen, The March of Black Men: An Authentic Account of the Determined

Fight of the Ethiopian People for Their Independence (New York: Voice of EthiopiaPress, 1939), 8.

10. For example, journalist Joel Rogers and pilot Colonel John Robinson were membersof the EWF.

11. EWF Inc., Constitution and By-laws (1937: Article III and IV). These groups werecalled chapters or charters, terms with a religious or legal connotation, but also locals,followed by the number which identified them. We use this last term throughoutthe essay.

12. See William Scott, “Malaku E. Bayen: Ethiopian Emissary to Black America, 1936–1941”, Ethiopia Observer XV, no. 2 (1972): 132–38. See also Harris, African-AmericanReactions, 127.

13. Harris, African-American Reactions, 128.14. C.L.R. James and A. Phillip Randolph, both well-known pan-Africanists, were

among the many speakers. Numerous associations were represented (churches, tradeunions, UNIA, YMCA, Royal Order of Ethiopian Hebrews, etc.). See Harris, African-American Reactions, 136–39.

15. Harris, African-American Reactions, 130.16. Fikru Negash Gebrekidan, Bond without Blood: A History of Ethiopian and New

World Black Relations, 1896–1991 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 108.17. Harris, African-American Reactions, 131–32.18. New Times & Ethiopia News, 26 March 1955, 1.19. Randal Hepner, “Movement of Jah People: Race, Class and Religion among the

Rastafari of Jamaica and New York City” (PhD diss., New School for SocialResearch, New York, 1998), 69.

20. Ibid., 68–72.21. Letter of EWF Local 17 to Sir Arthur Richards, Governor of Jamaica, 11 December

1939, in 1B/5/77/1945 [1939], National Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica.22. Van Dijk, Jahmaica Rastafari and Wider Society, 113.23. Barry Chevannes, “The Origin of the Dreadlocks” in Rastafari and Other African-

Caribbean Worldviews, ed. Barry Chevannes (La Haye: Institute of Social Studies,1998), 77–96.

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24. B.J. Moody, EWF Officer, interview by author, Shashemene, 1 April 2003.25. George Bryan, EWF New York, to Miss Iris Davis, EWF Local 31, Kingston, 8 July

1950, in 1B/5/77-367 Repatriation to Africa III, National Archives, Spanish Town,Jamaica.

26. Richard A. Brown, EWF Local 31 to Sir John Huggins, Governor of Jamaica, 6 Sep-tember 1950, in 1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa III, National Archives,Spanish Town, Jamaica.

27. Colonial Secretary to Richard A. Brown, EWF Local 31, 12 September 1950, in1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa III, National Archives, Spanish Town,Jamaica.

28. Richard A. Brown, EWF Local 31 to Sir John Huggins, Governor of Jamaica, 20September 1950, in 1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa III. National Archives,Spanish Town, Jamaica.

29. Richard A. Brown, EWF Local 31 to Sir John Huggins, Governor of Jamaica, 21October 1950, in 1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa III, National Archives,Spanish Town, Jamaica.

30. New Times & Ethiopia News, 24 February 1951, 3.31. See Minutes no. 197, 13November 1950, in 1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa

III, National Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica. See also Lawson’s declaration to thepress, Daily Gleaner, 13 November 1950.

32. As indicated in Daily Gleaner, 27 September 1950.33. Letter of Joseph Myers to the Governor, 22 August 1950 and Minutes no. 148, 21

July 1950, in 1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa III, National Archives, SpanishTown, Jamaica.

34. Letter of Claudius Barnes, Afro-West Indian League to the Colonial Secretary, 27September 1950, in 1B/5/77-367 [1933] Repatriation to Africa III, National Archives,Spanish Town, Jamaica.

35. G. James Fleming and Christian E. Burckel, eds., Who’s Who in Coloured America,7th ed. (Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: Christian E. Burckel & Associates, 1950), 438.

36. African Opinion 1, no. 4 (1950): 11.37. Ibid., 12.38. African Opinion 9, nos. 3 & 4 (1969): 7.39. New Times & Ethiopia News, 6 September 1952, 3, and 15 November 1952, 4.40. New Times & Ethiopia News, 6 September 1952, 3.41. Daily Gleaner, 22 October 1955, 3.42. Daily Gleaner, 30 September 1955. This visit of Mayme Richardson and the public

announcement about the land grant is the reason why, in the literature on the Rasta-fari movement, the date of the land grant is always written as 1955. However, it ismost likely that the land grant was effected between May and June 1950. See Bonacci,Exodus!, 140–43.

94 Giulia Bonacci

43. Executive Committee, EWF New York, to Executive Committee EWF Local 31,Kingston, 24 September 1955, in M.G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford, TheRastafarian Movement in Kingston, Jamaica (Mona: Institute of Social and EconomicResearch, University College of the West Indies, 1960), 39–40.

44. See the pictures in New Times & Ethiopia News, 11 June 1955, 1.45. New Times & Ethiopia News, 3 March 1956, 3.46. Carole Yawney, “Lions in Babylon: The Rastafarians of Jamaica as a Visionary Move-

ment” (PhD diss., McGill University, 1978), 339.47. Smith, Augier and Nettleford, Rastafarian Movement in Kingston, Jamaica, 12.48. Moody, interview by author.49. Ibid.50. Officers of Local 43 of the EWF, interview by author, Waterhouse, Kingston, 23

March 2002.51. Jah Bones, One Love Rastafari: History, Doctrine and Livity (London: Voice of Rasta,

1985), 29.52. Harold Reid, interview by author, Shashemene, 2 April 2003.53. Moody, interview by author.54. Van Dijk, Jahmaica Rastafari and Wider Society, 115.55. Barry Chevannes, “New Approach to Rastafari”, in Rastafari and Other African-

Caribbean Worldviews, 30–31.56. In the late 1960s, Local 31 had about 250 registered members, and about 50 of them

were active members. Most were coming from the urban proletariat and wereemployed in construction, as mechanics, night guards, postal workers or as waiters.See Claudia Rogers, “Toward a Typology of Group Organisation and Group Activ-ity within the Rastafarian Movement” (oral presentation paper held in the archivesof the Research Institute for the Study of Man, New York Library, 1970), 10.

57. Daily Gleaner, 29December 1966, 3; the article is republished in African Opinion 8,nos. 1 & 2 (1967): 7.

58. For example, in 1954 she sent information on Local 31 to New Times and EthiopiaNews, see 11 September 1954, 3.

59. C. Clarke, interview by author, Shashemene, 21 January 2003.60. Ibid.61. Daily Gleaner, 6 September 1969.62. Shirlie R. Gibson, “African Repatriation: A Case Study of the Rastafarians and the

Malcoda Land-Grant at Shashemane, Ethiopia from 1930 to Present” (PhD diss.,Howard University, Washington, DC, 1996), 211.

63. See, for example, Daily Gleaner, 28 and 30 September 1969 for H. Shearer; and DailyGleaner, 12 October 1969 for M. Manley. See also Bonacci, Exodus! 346–48.

64. This first group was comprised of the Baugh family; see Bonacci, Exodus!, 221–24.65. Daily Gleaner, 30 April 1962.66. Chevannes, “New Approach to Rastafari”, 31–33.

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