(KING, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.) PHOTO TAKEN DURING THE VISIT OF EMPEROR HAILE SELASSIE, HIS FAMILY AND MLK JR. FAMILY VISITING THE TOMB OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. IN SOUTH VIEW CEMETARY. N.P. (ATLANTA) N.D. (1969). B/W 10X8 INCHES VERY MINOR WEAR WITH STAMP OF PHOTO ELAIN TOMLIN ON REVERSE.
HAILE SELASSIE VISITED THE UNITED STATES IN JULY OF 1969. TOMLIN WAS AN AFRICAM AMERICAN ATIST WHO WAS THE OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (SCLC)
PHOTO SHOWS A CANDID HAILE SELASSIE AND A CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER AT THE FUNERAL
Martin Luther King Jr. was originally buried here but was later moved to the King National Historic Park in Atlanta.
Tomlin, Elaine. (active Atlanta, GA, 1960s-80s)
Bibliography and Exhibitions
MONOGRAPHS AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
CHIARMONTE, PAULA.
Women Artists in the United States. A Selective Bibliography and Resource Guide on the Fine and Decorative Arts, 1750-1986.
Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1990.
Non-black or male artists who were erroneously included are omitted from this list: Eileen Abdulrashid, Mrs. Allen, Charlotte Amevor, Emma Amos, Dorothy Atkins, Joan Cooper Bacchus, Ellen Banks, Camille Billops, Betty Blayton, Gloria Bohanon, [as Bottanon], Shirley Bolton, Kay Brown, Vivian Browne, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Margaret Burroughs, Sheryle Butler, Carole Byard, Catti [as Caiti], Yvonne Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Doris L. Colbert, Luiza Combs, Marva Cremer, Doris Crudup, Oletha Devane, Stephanie Douglas, Eugenia Dunn, Queen Ellis, Annette Lewis Ensley, Minnie Jones Evans, Irene Foreman, Miriam Francis, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Ibibio Fundi [as Ibibin] (a.k.a. Jo Austin), Alice Gafford, Wilhelmina Godfrey [as Wihelmina], Amanda Gordon, Cynthia Hawkins, Kitty L. Hayden, Lana T. Henderson [as Lane], Vernita Henderson, Adrienne Hoard, Jacqui Holmes, Margo Humphrey, Clementine Hunter, Claudia Jane Hutchinson, Martha E. Jackson, May Howard Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Rosalind Jeffries, Marie Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Barbara Jones-Hogu [as Jones-Hogn], Harriet Kennedy, Gwendolyn Knight, Edmonia Lewis, Samella Lewis, Ida Magwood, Mary Manigault, Valerie Maynard, Geraldine McCullough, Mrs. McIntosh, Dorothy McQuarter, Yvonne Cole Meo, Onnie Millar, Eva Hamlin Miller, Evangeline Montgomery, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Norma Morgan, Marilyn Nance, Inez Nathaniel-Walker, Senga Nengudi, Winifred Owens-Hart, Denise Palm, Louise Parks, Angela Perkins, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Stephanie Pogue, Harriet Powers, Elizabeth Prophet, Mavis Pusey, Faith Ringgold, Brenda Rogers, Juanita Rogers, Nellie Mae Rowe, Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, Elizabeth Scott, Joyce Scott, Jewel Simon, Shirley Stark, Della Brown Taylor [as Delia Braun Taylor], Jessie Telfair [as Jessi], Alma Thomas, Phyllis Thompson, Roberta Thompson, Betty Tolbert, Elaine Tomlin, Lucinda Toomer, Elaine Towns, Yvonne Tucker, Charlene Tull, Anna Tyler, Florestee Vance, Pinkie Veal, Ruth Waddy, Carole Ward, Laura W. Waring, Pecolia Warner, Mary Parks Washington, Laura W. Williams, Yvonne Williams. A few African American male artists are also included: Leslie Garland Bolling, Ademola Olugebefola [as Adennola].
CRAWFORD, JOE, ed.
The Black Photographers Annual 1973.
1973.
Over 110 full-page b&w illus. Foreword by Toni Morrison; intro. by Clayton Riley. Contains work by 49 African American U.S. photographers including Vance Allen, Bert Andrews, Anthony Barboza, Ken Beckles, Hugh Bell, Adger Cowans, Daniel Dawson, Roy DeCarava, Amartey Dente, Mel Dixon, Louis Draper, Clarence E. Eastmond, Albert Fennar, Mikki Ferrill, Bob Fletcher, Ray Francis, Rennie George, Ray Gibson, Leisant Giroux, Dorothy Gloster, Hugh Grannum, Leroy Henderson, Bill Hilton, Bill Jackson, Jim McDonald, James Mannas, Jr., K. A. Morais, Dexter Oliver, John Pinderhughes, Herbert Randall, Cornelius Reed, Morris Rogers, Lloyd E. Saunders, Moneta Sleet, Jr., Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, Chuck Stewart, Frank Stewart, Theron Taylor, Elaine Tomlin, Roger Tucker, Donald R. Valentine, James Van DerZee. Shawn Walker, Ernest Werts, Edward West, Reginald Wickham, Daniel S. Williams, Ted Williams. Foreword by Toni Morrison; intro. by Clayton Riley. Essential reference. Small 4to, stiff wraps. First ed.
MOUTOUSSAMY-ASHE, JEANNE.
Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers.
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1986.
224 pp., 182 illus., individual bio-bibliogs., listing of photographers, geographical list, footnotes, general bibliog., index. Important survey and reference work with numerous artists not included elsewhere. Includes approximately 115 artists: Barbara Dumetz, Sharon Farmer, Mikki Ferrill, Louise Jefferson, Elaine Tomlin, Michelle Agins, Salimah Ali, Gladys Allen, Winifred Hall Allen (21 illus.), Esther Anderson, Dana Asbury, Carol Augustus, Hattie Baker, Donna Marie Barnes, Carolyn Bell-Taitt, Ellen Blalock, Carol Parrott Blue, Johnnie Mae Bomar, Sandra Turner-Bond, Bonnie Brissett, Queen E. Brooks, Alberta H. Brown, Millie Burns, Lucy Calloway, Michelle Campbell, Charlotte, Marna Clarke, Helen Jones Chur, Juanita Cole, Bonnie Collins, (Mrs.) Collins, Cary Beth Cryor, Billie Louise Barbour Davis (3 illus.), Lenore Davis, Pat Davis, Perla De Leon, Theodora Dorsey, Emma Alice Downs, Barbara Dumetz, Sharon Farmer, Phoebe Farris, Anna Faulkner, Mikki Ferrill (3 illus.), Mary E. Flenoy, Collette V. Fournier, Leisant Giraux, Dorothy Gloster, Lucy Gums, Edna Guy, Rosalind Guy, Susan Hacker, Ella Hamlin, Lydia Hammond, Gail Adelle Hansberry, Inge Hardison ( illus.), Elise Forrest Harleston (10 illus.), Adelle Hodge, Zebonia Hood, A. Grendel Howard, Ann Elizabeth Jackson, Vera Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Marjorie Johnson, Julia Jones, Gertrude Lewis, Fern Logan, Marie Lovelace, Augusta Mann, Louise Ozell Martin, Lydia Mayo, Dora Miller, Lavina C. Miller, Marlene Montoute, Diane Moore, Shelley Moore, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Carol Mungin, Marilyn Nance, Jacqueline Lavetta Patten, Gwen Phillips, Patricia Phipps, Diane Louise Preacely, Phillda Ragland Njau, Akili-Casundria Ramsess, Deborah Ray, Sean Reynolds, Debbie Richardson, Johnnie Dell Robinson, Wilhelmina Pearl Selena Roberts, Eslanda Cardoza Goode Robeson, Reenie Schmerl, Hazel Shumate, Naomi Simonetti, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Marie C. Simpson, Ming Smith, Kalima Soham, Joan Byrd Stephens, Jo Moore Stewart, Lauren Stradford, Kathleen-Marie Taylor, Kay Taylor, Elnora Teal, Rosetta C. Teasdale, Fanny J. Thompson, Elaine Tomlin, Mary E. Warren, Leah Ann Washington, Ruby Washington, Ruth B. Brummel Washington, Sharon Watson, Carrie Mae Weems, Judith White, Adine Williams, Elizabeth ("Tex") Williams, Deborah Willis-Ryan, Delcina Wilson, Joyce R. Wilson, Emma King Woodward, Ethel Worthington. NOTE: Artists for whom there is no other source of information are not individually listed in the AAVAD database. 4to (28 cm.), cloth, dust jacket. First ed.
WILLIS, DEBORAH.
Visualizing Political Struggle: Civil Rights Era Photography.
London: Continuum, 2005.
In: Holloway, David and John Beck, eds. American Visual Cultures:166-173, 4 b&w illus. A survey of how Civil Rights era photography aroused public opinion and informed social consciousness, that at least mentions in passing a small roster of black photographers: Roy DeCarava, Jonathan Eubanks, Benedict Fernandez, Bob Fletcher, Jack T. Franklin, Doug Harris, R. C. Hickman, Bert Miles, Gordon Parks, Richard Saunders, Moneta Sleet, Jr., Beuford Smith, Elaine Tomlin, Cecil Williams, and Ernest Withers. 8vo (9.7 x 6.7 in.), cloth, d.j.
WILLIS, DEBORAH, ed.
Black Photographers: 1940-1988, An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography.
New York: Garland, 1989.
483 pp., over 350 illus. The most comprehensive list of Black photographers to date, with brief biographical entries on many artists and a few bibliographical entries on approximately half of the hundreds of names. Photographers included in Willis's earlier book, Black Photographers 1840-1940, receive only a brief notation here. An indispensable reference work. Artists discussed include: Salimah Ali, Omobowale Ayorinde, J. Edward Bailey, III, Anthony Barboza, Donnamarie Barnes, Vanessa Barnes Hillian, Fay D. Bellamy, Lisa Bellamy, Dawoud Bey, Hart Leroy Bibbs, Bonnie Brisset, Barbara Brown, Lisa Brown, Millie Burns, Muriel Agatha Fortune Bush, Cynthia D. Cole, Juanita Cole, Cary Beth Cryor, Tere L. Cuesta, Fikisha Cumbo, Phyllis Cunningham, Pat Davis, Carmen DeJesus, Lydia Ann Douglas, Barbara Dumetz, Joan Eda, Sharon Farmer, Phoebe Farris, Valeria "Mikki" Ferrill, Collette V. Fournier, Roland L. Freeman, Rennie George, Bernadette F. B. Gibson, Anthony Gleaton, Dorothy Gloster, Lydia Hale-Hammond, Gail Adelle Hansberry, Inge Hardison, Teenie Harris, Madeleine Hill, Zebonia Hood, Vera Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Michelle M. Jeffries, Brent Jones, Brian V. Jones, Julia Jones, Kenneth G. Jones, Marvin T. Jones, Leah Jaynes Karp, Irene C. Kellogg, Lucius King, Romulo Lachatanere, Allie Sharon Larkin, George Larkins, Archy La Salle, Abe C. Lavalais, Joyce Lee, Sa'Longo J.R. Lee, Carl E. Lewis, Harvey James Lewis, Matthew Lewis, Roy Lewis, Fern Logan, Edie Lynch, Peter Magubane, Jimmie Mannas, Louise Martin, Mickey Mathis, Carroll T. Maynard, Rhashidah Elaine McNeill, Marlene Montoute, Michelle Morgan, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Marilyn Nance, Yvonne Payne, Patricia Phipps, Ellen Queen, Phillda Ragland, Arkili-Casundria Ramsess, Odetta Rogers, Veronica Saddler, Lloyd Saunders, Cheryl Shackelton, Victoria Simmons, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Clarissa T. Sligh, Ming Smith, Toni Smith, Charlynn Spencer Pyne, Jo Moore Stewart, Celeste P. Stokes, Elisabeth Sunday, Elaine Tomlin, Sandra Turner-Bond, Jacqueline La Vetta Van Sertima, Dixie Vereen, William Onikwa Wallace, Sharon Watson-Mauro, Carrie Mae Weems, Dolores West, Judith C. White, Elizabeth "Tex" Williams, Lucy Williams, Pat Ward Williams, Deborah Willis, Carol R. Wilson, Jonni Mae Wingard, Ernest Withers, and many, many others. Not all listed in this description, but all individual photographers are cross-listed. Large stout 4to, pictorial boards, no d.j. (as issued). First ed.
WILLIS, DEBORAH, ed.
Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present.
New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000.
348 pp., 81 color plates, 487 b&w illus., notes, bibliog., index. Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley. Published to accompany the three-part traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution. Important gathering of photographs of Black subjects by African American photographers from mid-nineteenth century through the present (roughly half from 1980s and 90s) by the pre-eminent historian of this subject. Photographers include: O'Neal Abel, Salima Ali, James Lattimer Allen, Winifred Hall Allen, Amalia Amaki, Linda L. Ammons, Ken D. Ashton, Thomas Askew, John B. Bailey, James Presley Ball, Sr., James Presley Ball, Jr., Thomas Ball, Anthony Barboza, Cornelius M. Battey, Anthony Beale, Arthur P. Bedou, Donald Bernard, Dawoud Bey, Howard Bingham, Caroll Parrott Blue, Terry Boddie, Rick Bolton, St. Clair Bourne, George O. Brown, John H. Brown, Jr., Keith M. Calhoun, Dennis Callwood, Don Camp, Roland Charles, Albert Chong, Carl Clark, Linda Day Clark, Allen Edward Cole, Florestine Perrault Collins, Herbert Collins, Adger Cowans, Renée Cox, Cary Beth Cryor, Steven Cummings, Gerald G. Cyrus, Jack Davis, C. Daniel Dawson, Roy DeCarava, Doris Derby, Stephanie Dinkins, Lou Draper, George Durr, Nekisha Durrett, Edward (Eddie) Eleha, Darrel Ellis, Jonathan Eubanks, Delphine A. Fawundu, Alfred Fayemi, Jeffrey Fearing, Joe Flowers, Collette Fournier, Jack T. Franklin, Elnora Frazier, Daniel Freeman, Roland L. Freeman, King Daniel Ganaway, Bill Gaskins, Glenalvin Goodridge, Wallace Goodridge, William Goodridge, Bob Gore, Lonnie Graham, Todd Gray, Camille Gustus, Robert Haggins, Austin Hansen, Edwin Harleston, Elise Forrest Harleston, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Doug Harris, Joe Harris, Lyle Ashton Harris, Thomas Allen Harris, Lucius Henderson, Craig Herndon, Leroy Henderson, Calvin Hicks, Chester Higgins, Jr., Milton Hinton, Raymond Holman, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Curtis Humphrey, Reginald Jackson, Chris Johnson, Brent Jones, Kenneth George Jones, Lou Jones, Benny Joseph, Kamoinge Workshop, Perry A. Keith, Andrew T. Kelly, Roshini Kempadoo, Winston Kennedy, Keba Konte, Andree Lambertson, Bill Lathan, Carl E. Lewis, Nashomeh L. R. Lindo, Harlee Little, Fern Logan, Stephen Marc, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Charles Martin, Louise Ozell Martin, Chandra McCormick, Robert H. McNeill, Bertrand Miles, Cheryl Miller, Robert (Bob) Moore, John W. Mosley, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ming Smith Murray (as Ming Smith), Mansa Mussa, Marilyn Nance, Sunny Nash, Constance Newman, David Ogburn, G. Dwoyid Olmstead, Kambui Olujimi, Villard Paddio, Gordon Parks, D.M. Pearson, Moira Pernambuco, Bonnie Phillips, John Pinderhughes, P. H. Polk, Paul Poole, Carl R. Pope, Marion James Porter, Sheila Pree, Eli Reed, Richard Roberts, Wilhelmina Williams Roberts, Orville Robertson, Herb Robinson, Eugene Roquemore, Susan J. Ross, Ken Royster, Jeffery St. Mary, Richard Saunders, Jeffrey Scales, Addison L. Scurlock, George H. Scurlock, Robert S. Scurlock, Robert A. Sengstacke, Harry Shepherd, Accra Shepp, Carl Sidle, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Moneta Sleet, Clarissa Sligh, Beuford Smith, Marvin Smith, Morgan Smith, Frank Stallings, Charles (Chuck) Stewart, Gerald Straw, Ron Tarver, Hank Willis Thomas, Elaine Tomlin, June DeLairre Truesdale, Sheila Turner, Richard Aloysius Twine, James Vanderzee, Vincent Alan W., Christian Walker, Shawn W. Walker, Augustus Washington, Lewis Watts, Carrie Mae Weems, Ellie Lee Weems, Jean Weisinger, Edward West, Wendel A. White, Cynthia Wiggins, Carlton Wilkinson, Carla Williams, Charles Williams, Milton Williams, Pat Ward Williams, William Earle Williams, Ernest C. Withers, Mel Wright. Large 4to (31 cm.), cloth, d.j. First ed.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.[1]
Contents
1 Founding
1.1 Citizenship Schools
1.2 Albany Movement
1.3 Birmingham campaign
1.4 March on Washington
1.5 St. Augustine protests
1.6 Selma Voting Rights Movement and the march to Montgomery
1.7 Grenada Freedom Movement
1.8 Jackson conference
1.9 Chicago Freedom Movement
1.10 Poor People's Campaign
2 1968–1997
3 1997 to present
4 Leadership
5 Relationships with other organizations
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links
Founding
On January 10, 1957, following the Montgomery Bus Boycott victory and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Martin Luther King Jr. invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Prior to this, Rustin, in New York City, conceived the idea of initiating such an effort and first sought C. K. Steele to make the call and take the lead role. Steele declined, but told Rustin he would be glad to work right beside him if he sought King in Montgomery for the role. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to King, Rustin, Baker, and Steele, Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Joseph Lowery of Mobile, and Ralph Abernathy of Montgomery, all played key roles in this meeting.[2]
On February 15, a follow-up meeting was held in New Orleans. Out of these two meetings came a new organization with King as its president. Initially called the "Negro Leaders Conference on Nonviolent Integration," then "Southern Negro Leaders Conference," the group eventually chose "Southern Christian Leadership Conference" (SCLC) as its name, and expanded its focus beyond buses to ending all forms of segregation.[3] A small office was established in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple Building on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta[4] with Ella Baker as SCLC's first—and for a long time only—staff member.[5]
SCLC was governed by an elected Board, and established as an organization of affiliates, most of which were either individual churches or community organizations such as the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). This organizational form differed from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who recruited individuals and formed them into local chapters.
The organization also drew inspiration from the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, who befriended King after he appeared at a Graham crusade in New York City in 1957. Despite tactical differences, which arose from Graham's willingness to continue affiliating himself with segregationists, the SCLC and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had similar ambitions and Graham would privately advise the SCLC.[6]
During its early years, SCLC struggled to gain footholds in black churches and communities across the South. Social activism in favor of racial equality faced fierce repression from police, White Citizens' Council and the Ku Klux Klan. Only a few churches had the courage to defy the white-dominated status-quo by affiliating with SCLC, and those that did risked economic retaliation against pastors and other church leaders, arson, and bombings.
SCLC's advocacy of boycotts and other forms of nonviolent protest was controversial among both whites and blacks. Many black community leaders believed that segregation should be challenged in the courts and that direct action excited white resistance, hostility, and violence. Traditionally, leadership in black communities came from the educated elite—ministers, professionals, teachers, etc.—who spoke for and on behalf of the laborers, maids, farm-hands, and working poor who made up the bulk of the black population. Many of these traditional leaders were uneasy at involving ordinary blacks in mass activity such as boycotts and marches.
SCLC's belief that churches should be involved in political activism against social ills was also deeply controversial. Many ministers and religious leaders—both black and white—thought that the role of the church was to focus on the spiritual needs of the congregation and perform charitable works to aid the needy. To some of them, the social-political activity of King and SCLC amounted to dangerous radicalism which they strongly opposed.
SCLC and King were also sometimes criticized for lack of militancy by younger activists in groups such as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and CORE who were participating in sit-ins and Freedom Rides.
Citizenship Schools
Originally started in 1954 by Esau Jenkins and Septima Clark on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, the Citizenship Schools focused on teaching adults to read so they could pass the voter-registration literacy tests, fill out driver's license exams, use mail-order forms, and open checking accounts. Under the auspices of the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Research and Education Center) the program was expanded across the South. The Johns Island Citizenship School was housed at The Progressive Club, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.[7][8]
When the state of Tennessee revoked Highlander's charter and confiscated its land and property in 1961, SCLC rescued the citizenship school program and added Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, and Andrew Young to its staff. Under the innocuous cover of adult-literacy classes, the schools secretly taught democracy and civil rights, community leadership and organizing, practical politicals, and the strategies and tactics of resistance and struggle, and in so doing built the human foundations of the mass community struggles to come.
Eventually, close to 69,000 teachers, most of them unpaid volunteers and many with little formal education, taught Citizenship Schools throughout the South.[9] Many of the Civil Rights Movement's adult leaders such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Victoria Gray, and hundreds of other local leaders in black communities across the South attended and taught citizenship schools.[10]
Albany Movement
Main article: Albany Movement
In 1961 and 1962, SCLC joined SNCC in the Albany Movement, a broad protest against segregation in Albany, Georgia. It is generally considered the organization's first major nonviolent campaign. At the time, it was considered by many to be unsuccessful: despite large demonstrations and many arrests, few changes were won, and the protests drew little national attention. Yet, despite the lack of immediate gains, much of the success of the subsequent Birmingham Campaign can be attributed to lessons learned in Albany.[11]
Birmingham campaign
Main article: Birmingham campaign
By contrast, the 1963 SCLC campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, was an unqualified success. The campaign focused on a single goal—the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants—rather than total desegregation, as in Albany. The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner "Bull" Connor, stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists.
After his arrest in April, King wrote the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in response to a group of clergy who had criticized the Birmingham campaign, writing that it was "directed and led in part by outsiders" and that the demonstrations were "unwise and untimely."[12] In his letter, King explained that, as president of SCLC, he had been asked to come to Birmingham by the local members:
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. ... Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.[13]
King also addressed the question of "timeliness":
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. ... Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.[13]
The most dramatic moments of the Birmingham campaign came on May 2, when, under the direction and leadership of James Bevel, who would soon officially become SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education, more than 1,000 Black children left school to join the demonstrations; hundreds were arrested. The following day, 2,500 more students joined and were met by Bull Connor with police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses. That evening, television news programs reported to the nation and the world scenes of fire hoses knocking down schoolchildren and dogs attacking individual demonstrators. Public outrage led the Kennedy administration to intervene more forcefully and a settlement was announced on May 10, under which the downtown businesses would desegregate and eliminate discriminatory hiring practices, and the city would release the jailed protesters.
March on Washington
Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington
After the Birmingham Campaign, SCLC called for massive protests in Washington, DC, to push for new civil rights legislation that would outlaw segregation nationwide. A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin issued similar calls for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On July 2, 1963, King, Randolph, and Rustin met with James Farmer Jr. of the Congress of Racial Equality, John Lewis of SNCC, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, and Whitney Young of the Urban League to plan a united march on August 28.
The media and political establishment viewed the march with great fear and trepidation over the possibility that protesters would run riot in the streets of the capital. But despite their fears, the March on Washington was a huge success, with no violence, and an estimated number of participants ranging from 200,000 to 300,000. It was also a logistical triumph—more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered aircraft, and uncounted autos converged on the city in the morning and departed without difficulty by nightfall.
The crowning moment of the march was King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech in which he articulated the hopes and aspirations of the Civil Rights Movement and rooted it in two cherished gospels—the Old Testament and the unfulfilled promise of the American creed.[14]
St. Augustine protests
Main article: St. Augustine movement
When civil rights activists protesting segregation in St. Augustine, Florida were met with arrests and Ku Klux Klan violence, the local SCLC affiliate appealed to King for assistance in the spring of 1964. SCLC sent staff to help organize and lead demonstrations and mobilized support for St. Augustine in the North. Hundreds were arrested on sit-ins and marches opposing segregation, so many that the jails were filled and the overflow prisoners had to be held in outdoor stockades. Among the northern supporters who endured arrest and incarceration were Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, the mother of the governor of Massachusetts and Mrs. John Burgess, wife of the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts.[15]
Nightly marches to the Old Slave Market were attacked by white mobs, and when blacks attempted to integrate "white-only" beaches they were assaulted by police who beat them with clubs. On June 11, King and other SCLC leaders were arrested for trying to lunch at the Monson Motel restaurant, and when an integrated group of young protesters tried to use the motel swimming pool the owner poured acid into the water. TV and newspaper stories of the struggle for justice in St. Augustine helped build public support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964[16] that was then being debated in Congress.[17]
Selma Voting Rights Movement and the march to Montgomery
Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches
When voter registration and civil rights activity in Selma, Alabama were blocked by an illegal injunction,[18] the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) asked SCLC for assistance. King, SCLC, and DCVL chose Selma as the site for a major campaign around voting rights that would demand national voting rights legislation in the same way that the Birmingham and St. Augustine campaigns won passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[16][19] In cooperation with SNCC who had been organizing in Selma since early 1963, the Voting Rights Campaign commenced with a rally in Brown Chapel on January 2, 1965 in defiance of the injunction. SCLC and SNCC organizers recruited and trained blacks to attempt to register to vote at the courthouse, where many of them were abused and arrested by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark — a staunch segregationist. Black voter applicants were subjected to economic retaliation by the White Citizens' Council, and threatened with physical violence by the Ku Klux Klan. Officials used the discriminatory literacy test[20] to keep blacks off the voter rolls.
Nonviolent mass marches demanded the right to vote and the jails filled up with arrested protesters, many of them students. On February 1, King and Abernathy were arrested. Voter registration efforts and protest marches spread to the surrounding Black Belt counties — Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, Greene, and Hale. On February 18, an Alabama State Trooper shot and killed Jimmie Lee Jackson during a voting rights protest in Marion, county seat of Perry County. In response, James Bevel, who was directing SCLC's Selma actions, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery, and on March 7 close to 600 protesters attempted the march to present their grievances to Governor Wallace. Led by Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC, the marchers were attacked by State Troopers, deputy sheriffs, and mounted possemen who used tear-gas, horses, clubs, and bull whips to drive them back to Brown Chapel. News coverage of this brutal assault on nonviolent demonstrators protesting for the right to vote — which became known as "Bloody Sunday" — horrified the nation.[21]
King, Bevel, Diane Nash and others called on clergy and people of conscience to support the black citizens of Selma. Thousands of religious leaders and ordinary Americans came to demand voting rights for all. One of them was James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister, who was savagely beaten to death on the street by Klansmen who severely injured two other ministers in the same attack.
After more protests, arrests, and legal maneuvering, Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered Alabama to allow the march to Montgomery. It began on March 21 and arrived in Montgomery on the 24th. On the 25th, an estimated 25,000[22] protesters marched to the steps of the Alabama capitol in support of voting rights where King spoke.[23] Within five months, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson responded to the enormous public pressure generated by the Selma Voting Rights Movement by enacting into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Grenada Freedom Movement
When the Meredith Mississippi March Against Fear passed through Grenada, Mississippi on June 15, 1966, it sparked months of civil rights activity on the part of Grenada blacks. They formed the Grenada County Freedom Movement (GCFM) as an SCLC affiliate, and within days 1,300 blacks registered to vote.[24]
Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964[16] had outlawed segregation of public facilities, the law had not been applied in Grenada which still maintained rigid segregation. After black students were arrested for trying to sit downstairs in the "white" section of the movie theater, SCLC and the GCFM demanded that all forms of segregation be eliminated, and called for a boycott of white merchants. Over the summer, the number of protests increased and many demonstrators and SCLC organizers were arrested as police enforced the old Jim Crow social order. In July and August, large mobs of white segregationists mobilized by the KKK violently attacked nonviolent marchers and news reporters with rocks, bottles, baseball bats and steel pipes.
When the new school year began in September, SCLC and the GCFM encouraged more than 450 black students to register at the formerly white schools under a court desegregation order. This was by far the largest school integration attempt in Mississippi since the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. The all-white school board resisted fiercely, whites threatened black parents with economic retaliation if they did not withdraw their children, and by the first day of school the number of black children registered in the white schools had dropped to approximately 250. On the first day of class, September 12, a furious white mob organized by the Klan attacked the black children and their parents with clubs, chains, whips, and pipes as they walked to school, injuring many and hospitalizing several with broken bones. Police and Mississippi State Troopers made no effort to halt or deter the mob violence.[25]
Over the following days, white mobs continued to attack the black children until public pressure and a Federal court order finally forced Mississippi lawmen to intervene. By the end of the first week, many black parents had withdrawn their children from the white schools out of fear for their safety, but approximately 150 black students continued to attend, still the largest school integration in state history at that point in time.
Inside the schools, blacks were harassed by white teachers, threatened and attacked by white students, and many blacks were expelled on flimsy pretexts by school officials. By mid-October, the number of blacks attending the white schools had dropped to roughly 70. When school officials refused to meet with a delegation of black parents, black students began boycotting both the white and black schools in protest. Many children, parents, GCFM activists, and SCLC organizers were arrested for protesting the school situation. By the end of October, almost all of the 2600 black students in Grenada County were boycotting school. The boycott was not ended until early November when SCLC attorneys won a Federal court order that the school system treat everyone equal regardless of race and meet with black parents.
Jackson conference
In 1966, Allen Johnson hosted the Tenth Annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the Masonic Temple in Jackson, Mississippi.[26] The theme of the conference was human rights - the continuing struggle.[26] Those in attendance, among others, included: Edward Kennedy, James Bevel, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Curtis W. Harris, Walter E. Fauntroy, C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, The Freedom Singers, Charles Evers, Fred Shuttlesworth, Cleveland Robinson, Randolph Blackwell, Annie Bell Robinson Devine, Charles Kenzie Steele, Alfred Daniel Williams King, Benjamin Hooks, Aaron Henry and Bayard Rustin.[26]
Chicago Freedom Movement
Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement
Poor People's Campaign
Main article: Poor People's Campaign
1968–1997
In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program "COINTELPRO" to "neutralize" what the FBI called "black nationalist hate groups" and other dissident groups.[27] The initial targets included Martin Luther King Jr. and others associated with the SCLC.[28]
After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, leadership was transferred to Ralph Abernathy, who presided until 1977. Abernathy was replaced by Joseph Lowery who was SCLC president until 1997. In 1997, MLK’s son, Martin Luther King III, became the president of SCLC. In 2004, for less than a year, it was Fred Shuttlesworth. After him, the president was Charles Steele Jr., and in 2009, Howard W. Creecy Jr. Next were Isaac Newton Farris Jr. and current president C. T. Vivian, who took office in 2012 and remains today.
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1997 to present
In 1997, Martin Luther King III was unanimously elected to head the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, replacing Joseph Lowery. Under King's leadership, the SCLC held hearings on police brutality, organized a rally for the 37th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech and launched a successful campaign to change the Georgia state flag, which previously featured a large Confederate cross.[29]
Within only a few months of taking the position, however, King was being criticized by the Conference board for alleged inactivity. He was accused of failing to answer correspondence from the board and take up issues important to the organization. The board also felt he failed to demonstrate against national issues the SCLC previously would have protested, like the disenfranchisement of black voters in the Florida election recount or time limits on welfare recipients implemented by then-President Bill Clinton.[30] King was further criticized for failing to join the battle against AIDS, allegedly because he feels uncomfortable talking about condoms.[29] He also hired Lamell J. McMorris, an executive director who, according to The New York Times, "rubbed board members the wrong way."[30]
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference suspended King from the presidency in June 2001, concerned that he was letting the organization drift into inaction. In a June 25 letter to King, the group's national chairman at the time, Claud Young, wrote, "You have consistently been insubordinate and displayed inappropriate, obstinate behavior in the (negligent) carrying out of your duties as president of SCLC."[30] King was reinstated only one week later after promising to take a more active role. Young said of the suspension, "I felt we had to use a two-by-four to get his attention. Well, it got his attention all right."[30]
After he was reinstated, King prepared a four-year plan outlining a stronger direction for the organization, agreeing to dismiss McMorris and announcing plans to present a strong challenge to the George W. Bush administration in an August convention in Montgomery, Alabama.[30] He also planned to concentrate on racial profiling, prisoners' rights, and closing the digital divide between whites and blacks.[29] However, King also suggested in a statement that the group needed a different approach than it had used in the past, stating, "We must not allow our lust for 'temporal gratification' to blind us from making difficult decisions to effect future generations."[30]
Martin Luther King III resigned in 2004, upon which Fred Shuttlesworth was elected to replace him. Shuttlesworth resigned the same year that he was appointed, complaining that "deceit, mistrust, and a lack of spiritual discipline and truth have eaten at the core of this once-hallowed organization".[31] He was replaced by Charles Steele Jr. who served until October 2009.
On October 30, 2009, Elder Bernice King, King's youngest child, was elected SCLC's new president, with James Bush III taking office in February 2010 as Acting President/CEO until Bernice King took office. However, on January 21, 2011, fifteen months after her election, Bernice King declined the position of president. In a written statement, she said that her decision came "after numerous attempts to connect with the official board leaders on how to move forward under my leadership, unfortunately, our visions did not align."[32]
Leadership
The best-known member of the SCLC was Martin Luther King Jr., who was president and chaired the organization until he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Other prominent members of the organization have included Joseph Lowery, Ralph Abernathy, Ella Baker, James Bevel, Diane Nash, Dorothy Cotton, James Orange, C. O. Simpkins Sr, Charles Kenzie Steele, C. T. Vivian, Fred Shuttlesworth, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, Walter E. Fauntroy, Claud Young, Septima Clark, Martin Luther King III, Curtis W. Harris, Maya Angelou, and Golden Frinks.
Presidents
• 1957–1968 Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1968–1977 Ralph Abernathy
• 1977–1997 Joseph Lowery
• 1997–2004 Martin Luther King III
• 2004 Fred Shuttlesworth
• 2004–2009 Charles Steele Jr.
• 2009–2011 Howard W. Creecy Jr.
• 2012–present Charles Steele Jr.
Relationships with other organizations
Because of its dedication to direct-action protests, civil disobedience, and mobilizing mass participation in boycotts and marches, SCLC was considered more "radical" than the older NAACP, which favored lawsuits, legislative lobbying, and education campaigns conducted by professionals. At the same time, it was generally considered less radical than Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) or the youth-led Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
To a certain extent during the period 1960–1964, SCLC had a mentoring relationship with SNCC before SNCC began moving away from nonviolence and integration in the late 1960s. Over time, SCLC and SNCC took different strategic paths, with SCLC focusing on large-scale campaigns such as Birmingham and Selma to win national legislation, and SNCC focusing on community-organizing to build political power on the local level. In many communities, there was tension between SCLC and SNCC because SCLC's base was the minister-led Black churches, and SNCC was trying to build rival community organizations led by the poor.[33] SCLC also had its own youth volunteer initiative, the SCOPE Project (Summer Community Organization on Political Education), which placed about 500 young people, mostly white students from nearly 100 colleges and universities, who registered about 49,000 voters in 120 counties in 6 southern states in 1965–66.[34]
In August 1979, the head of the SCLC, Joseph Lowery, met with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and endorsed Palestinian self-determination and urged the PLO to "consider" recognizing Israel's right to exist.[35]
Haile Selassie I (Ge'ez: ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴ, romanized: qädamawi haylä səllasé,[nb 2] Amharic pronunciation: [ˈhaɪlə sɨlˈlase] (About this soundlisten);[nb 3] born Lij Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975)[3] was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, and he had been Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia from 1916. He is a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history.[4][5] He was a member of the Solomonic dynasty who traced his lineage to Emperor Menelik I.
Selassie's internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations.[6] At the League of Nations in 1936, he condemned Italy's use of chemical weapons against its people during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.[7] He has been criticized by some historians for his suppression of rebellions among the landed aristocracy (the mesafint), which consistently opposed his reforms; some critics have also criticized Ethiopia's failure to modernize rapidly enough.[8][9]
Among the Rastafari movement, whose followers are estimated to number between 700,000 and one million, Haile Selassie is revered as the returned messiah of the Bible, God incarnate.[10][11] Beginning in Jamaica in the 1930s, the Rastafari movement perceives Haile Selassie as a messianic figure who will lead a future golden age of eternal peace, righteousness, and prosperity.[12] He was an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian throughout his life.
The 1973 famine in Ethiopia led to Selassie's removal from the throne.[13] He died on 27 August 1975 at age 83 following a coup d'état.[14] During his rule the Harari people were persecuted and many left the Harari Region.[15] His regime was also criticized by human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, as autocratic and illiberal.[9][16]
Contents
1 Name
2 Biography
2.1 Early life
2.2 Governorship
2.3 Regency
2.3.1 Travel abroad
2.4 King and Emperor
2.5 Conflict with Italy
2.5.1 Mobilization
2.5.2 Progress of the war
2.5.3 Exile debate
2.5.4 Collective security and the League of Nations, 1936
2.5.5 Exile
2.6 1940s and 1950s
2.6.1 1958 famine of Tigray
2.7 1960s
2.8 1970s
2.8.1 Wollo famine
2.8.2 Revolution
2.8.3 Imprisonment
2.8.4 Death and interment
3 Descendants
4 Rastafari messiah
4.1 Selassie's position
5 Titles and styles
5.1 National orders
6 Ancestry
7 Military ranks
8 In popular culture
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
11.1 Citations
11.2 Sources
12 Further reading
13 External links
Name
Styles of
Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
Imperial coat of arms of Ethiopia (Haile Selassie).svg
Reference style
His Imperial Majesty
Amharic: ግርማዊ; girmāwī
Spoken style
Your Imperial Majesty
Amharic: ጃንሆይ; djānhoi
lit. "O [esteemed] royal"
Alternative style
Our Lord (familiar)
Amharic: ጌቶቹ; getochu
lit. "Our master" (pl.)
This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ethiopic characters.
Haile Selassie was known as a child as Lij Tafari Makonnen (Amharic: ልጅ ተፈሪ መኮንን; lij teferī mekōnnin). Lij is translated as "child", and serves to indicate that a youth is of noble blood. His given name, Tafari, means "one who is respected or feared". Like most Ethiopians, his personal name "Tafari" is followed by that of his father Makonnen and that of his grandfather Woldemikael. His Ge'ez name Haile Selassie was given to him at his infant baptism and adopted again as part of his regnal name in 1930.
As Governor of Harar, he became known as Ras Tafari Makonnen About this soundlisten (help·info). Ras is translated as "head"[17] and is a rank of nobility equivalent to Duke;[18] though it is often rendered in translation as "prince". In 1916, Empress Zewditu I appointed him to the position of Balemulu Silt'an Enderase (Regent Plenipotentiary). In 1928, she planned on granting him the throne of Shewa, however at the last moment opposition from certain provincial rulers caused a change and his title Negus or "King" was conferred without geographical qualification or definition.[19][20]
On 2 November 1930, after the death of Empress Zewditu, Tafari was crowned Negusa Nagast, literally King of Kings, rendered in English as "Emperor".[21] Upon his ascension, he took as his regnal name Haile Selassie I. Haile means in Ge'ez "Power of" and Selassie means trinity—therefore Haile Selassie roughly translates to "Power of the Trinity".[22] Haile Selassie's full title in office was "By the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elect of God".[23][24][25][26][27][28][nb 4] This title reflects Ethiopian dynastic traditions, which hold that all monarchs must trace their lineage to Menelik I, who was the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.[29]
To Ethiopians, Haile Selassie has been known by many names, including Janhoy, Talaqu Meri, and Abba Tekel.[30] The Rastafari movement employs many of these appellations, also referring to him as Jah, Jah Jah, Jah Rastafari, and HIM (the abbreviation of "His Imperial Majesty").[30]
Biography
Early life
Ras Makonnen Woldemikael and his son Lij Tafari Makonnen
Haile Selassie's royal line (through his father's mother) descended from the Shewan Amhara Solomonic King, Sahle Selassie.[31] He was born on 23 July 1892, in the village of Ejersa Goro, in the Harar province of Ethiopia. His mother was Woizero ("Lady") Yeshimebet Ali Abba Jifar, daughter of a ruling chief from Wore Ilu in Wollo province, Dejazmach Ali Abba Jifar.[32] His maternal grandmother was of Gurage heritage.[33] Tafari's father was Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael, the grandson of King Sahle Selassie and governor of Harar. Ras Makonnen served as a general in the First Italo–Ethiopian War, playing a key role at the Battle of Adwa;[32] Haile Selassie was thus able to ascend to the imperial throne through his paternal grandmother, Woizero Tenagnework Sahle Selassie, who was an aunt of Emperor Menelik II and daughter of the Solomonic Amhara King of Shewa, Negus Sahle Selassie. As such, Haile Selassie claimed direct descent from Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of ancient Israel.[34]
Ras Makonnen arranged for Tafari as well as his first cousin, Imru Haile Selassie, to receive instruction in Harar from Abba Samuel Wolde Kahin, an Ethiopian capuchin monk, and from Dr. Vitalien, a surgeon from Guadeloupe. Tafari was named Dejazmach (literally "commander of the gate", roughly equivalent to "count")[35] at the age of 13, on 1 November 1905.[36] Shortly thereafter, his father Ras Makonnen died at Kulibi, in 1906.[37]
Governorship
Dejazmatch Tafari, as governor of Harar
Tafari assumed the titular governorship of Selale in 1906, a realm of marginal importance,[38] but one that enabled him to continue his studies.[36] In 1907, he was appointed governor over part of the province of Sidamo. It is alleged that during his late teens, Haile Selassie was married to Woizero Altayech, and that from this union, his daughter Princess Romanework was born.[39]
Following the death of his brother Yelma in 1907, the governorate of Harar was left vacant,[38] and its administration was left to Menelik's loyal general, Dejazmach Balcha Safo. Balcha Safo's administration of Harar was ineffective, and so during the last illness of Menelik II, and the brief reign of Empress Taitu Bitul, Tafari was made governor of Harar in 1910[37] or 1911.[40]
On 3 August, he married Menen Asfaw of Ambassel, niece of the heir to the throne Lij Iyasu.
Regency
The extent to which Tafari Makonnen contributed to the movement that would come to depose Lij Iyasu has been discussed extensively, particularly in Haile Selassie's own detailed account of the matter. Iyasu was the designated but uncrowned emperor of Ethiopia from 1913 to 1916. Iyasu's reputation for scandalous behavior and a disrespectful attitude towards the nobles at the court of his grandfather, Menelik II,[41] damaged his reputation. Iyasu's flirtation with Islam was considered treasonous among the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian leadership of the empire. On 27 September 1916, Iyasu was deposed.[42]
Empress Zewditu with one of her trusted priests
Ras Tafari at his investiture as regent on 11 February 1917
Contributing to the movement that deposed Iyasu were conservatives such as Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, Menelik II's longtime Minister of War. The movement to depose Iyasu preferred Tafari, as he attracted support from both progressive and conservative factions. Ultimately, Iyasu was deposed on the grounds of conversion to Islam.[17][42] In his place, the daughter of Menelik II (the aunt of Iyasu) was named Empress Zewditu, while Tafari was elevated to the rank of Ras and was made heir apparent and Crown Prince. In the power arrangement that followed, Tafari accepted the role of Regent Plenipotentiary (Balemulu 'Inderase)[nb 5] and became the de facto ruler of the Ethiopian Empire (Mangista Ityop'p'ya). Zewditu would govern while Tafari would administer.[43] While Iyasu had been deposed on 27 September 1916, on 8 October he managed to escape into the Ogaden Desert and his father, Negus Mikael of Wollo, had time to come to his aid.[44] On 27 October, Negus Mikael and his army met an army under Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis loyal to Zewditu and Tafari. During the Battle of Segale, Negus Mikael was defeated and captured. Any chance that Iyasu would regain the throne was ended and he went into hiding. On 11 January 1921, after avoiding capture for about five years, Iyasu was taken into custody by Gugsa Araya Selassie.
On 11 February 1917, the coronation for Zewditu took place. She pledged to rule justly through her Regent, Tafari. While Tafari was the more visible of the two, Zewditu was far from an honorary ruler. Her position required that she arbitrate the claims of competing factions. In other words, she had the last word. Tafari carried the burden of daily administration but, because his position was relatively weak, this was often an exercise in futility for him. Initially his personal army was poorly equipped, his finances were limited, and he had little leverage to withstand the combined influence of the Empress, the Minister of War, or the provincial governors.[44]
During his Regency, the new Crown Prince developed the policy of cautious modernization initiated by Menelik II. Also, during this time, he survived the 1918 flu pandemic, having come down with the illness.[45] He secured Ethiopia's admission to the League of Nations in 1923 by promising to eradicate slavery; each emperor since Tewodros II had issued proclamations to halt slavery,[46] but without effect: the internationally scorned practice persisted well into Haile Selassie's reign with an estimated 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s.[47][48]
Travel abroad
In 1924, Ras Tafari toured Europe and the Middle East visiting Jerusalem, Alexandria, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Geneva, and Athens. With him on his tour was a group that included Ras Seyum Mangasha of western Tigray Province; Ras Hailu Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam province; Ras Mulugeta Yeggazu of Illubabor Province; Ras Makonnen Endelkachew; and Blattengeta Heruy Welde Sellase. The primary goal of the trip to Europe was for Ethiopia to gain access to the sea. In Paris, Tafari was to find out from the French Foreign Ministry (Quai d'Orsay) that this goal would not be realized.[49] However, failing this, he and his retinue inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and churches. Although patterning many reforms after European models, Tafari remained wary of European pressure. To guard against economic imperialism, Tafari required that all enterprises have at least partial local ownership.[50] Of his modernization campaign, he remarked, "We need European progress only because we are surrounded by it. That is at once a benefit and a misfortune."[51]
Throughout Tafari's travels in Europe, the Levant, and Egypt, he and his entourage were greeted with enthusiasm and fascination. He was accompanied by Seyum Mangasha and Hailu Tekle Haymanot who, like Tafari, were sons of generals who contributed to the victorious war against Italy a quarter-century earlier at the Battle of Adwa.[52] Another member of his entourage, Mulugeta Yeggazu, actually fought at Adwa as a young man. The "Oriental Dignity" of the Ethiopians[53] and their "rich, picturesque court dress"[54] were sensationalized in the media; among his entourage he even included a pride of lions, which he distributed as gifts to President Alexandre Millerand and Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré of France, to King George V of the United Kingdom, and to the Zoological Garden (Jardin Zoologique) of Paris, France.[52] As one historian noted, "Rarely can a tour have inspired so many anecdotes".[52] In return for two lions, the United Kingdom presented Tafari with the imperial crown of Emperor Tewodros II for its safe return to Empress Zewditu. The crown had been taken by General Sir Robert Napier during the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia.[55]
In this period, the Crown Prince visited the Armenian monastery of Jerusalem. There, he adopted 40 Armenian orphans (አርባ ልጆች Arba Lijoch, "forty children"), who had lost their parents in Ottoman massacres. Tafari arranged for the musical education of the youths, and they came to form the imperial brass band.[56]
King and Emperor
See also: Modernization under Haile Selassie
Tafari's authority was challenged in 1928 when Dejazmach Balcha Safo went to Addis Ababa with a sizeable armed force. When Tafari consolidated his hold over the provinces, many of Menelik's appointees refused to abide by the new regulations. Balcha Safo, the governor (Shum) of coffee-rich Sidamo Province, was particularly troublesome. The revenues he remitted to the central government did not reflect the accrued profits and Tafari recalled him to Addis Ababa. The old man came in high dudgeon and, insultingly, with a large army.[nb 6] The Dejazmatch paid homage to Empress Zewditu, but snubbed Tafari.[57][58] On 18 February, while Balcha Safo and his personal bodyguard[nb 7] were in Addis Ababa, Tafari had Ras Kassa Haile Darge buy off his army and arranged to have him displaced as the Shum of Sidamo Province[59] by Birru Wolde Gabriel who himself was replaced by Desta Damtew.[44]
Even so, the gesture of Balcha Safo empowered Empress Zewditu politically and she attempted to have Tafari tried for treason. He was tried for his benevolent dealings with Italy including a 20-year peace