Description (en)
The Universal Ethiopian Anthem of Marcus Garvey’s Universal
Negro Improvement Association, from its opening lines “Ethiopia,
thou land of our fathers, thou land where the gods loved to be” to
its conclusion that “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand” in the
final verse, gives a glimpse at the influence Ethiopianism had on
emerging Pan-Africanism in the early twentieth century. The
following article will trace this influence in order to show how
widespread and profound it was. It will also show how
Ethiopianism was not only a mere forerunner of Pan-Africanism
that ceased to exist once Pan-Africanism was in place, but that
Ethiopianism constitutes a whole religious cosmology, in which
pan-African unity plays a central role, that has survived the
twentieth century and is now most visibly upheld and still
developed within the Rastafarian movement.