Ethiopia’s invasion drew mass Black support across three continents, not just elite protest.

Evidence

It’s very important to put the response of the black world to the Ethiopian War into perspective, especially since it is easy to get the impression that pan-Africanism was just some type of petty protest activity—a few blacks occasionally meeting in conference and sending resolutions here and there. But the real dimensions can only be gathered by estimating the kind of vast support that Ethiopia enjoyed amongst blacks everywhere. We were only one centre, the International African Friends of Ethiopia, but that title was very accurate. Letters simply poured into our office from blacks on three continents asking where could they register… . And the same was true of Africa. When the Italians entered Addis Ababa, it was reported that school children wept in the Gold Coast… . — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1263

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• QUESTION: Worth chasing further: the quantitative scale of IAFE’s correspondence and other Ethiopia solidarity groups.

Related

• Ethiopia’s 1935 invasion triggered a worldwide outpouring of Black radical solidarity. (similarity 0.85)
• Pan-African solidarity on Ethiopia produced no practical black action (similarity 0.82)
• The Ethiopian War exposed colonialism’s reality and promised African revolutionary counterparts to Leninism (similarity 0.80)
• Ethiopian elites’ disdain for Blackness fractured pan-African solidarity with African Americans. (similarity 0.79)
• The Italo-Ethiopian War inflamed racial antagonism across the West Indies (similarity 0.78)