War, Redemption, and Reggae:
How Haile Selassie Inspired Faith Across an Ocean
In his 1976 “War,” Bob Marley inspired resistance, singing that “until the basic human rights / Are equally guaranteed to all / Without regard to race … The African continent / Will not know peace.”¹ Marley’s song took these words from a speech given to the United Nations by the then-Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie a decade earlier. Through Marley, people across the world heard echoes of Selassie’s call for more nations to engage in improving the quality of life for Africans,² as his album peaked at 8th on the 1976 Billboard 200.³ Haile Selassie, after becoming emperor in 1930 following multiple efforts to prevent his rise to the throne,⁴ reigned for 4 decades, enacting a series of modernizations to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) and the nation’s foreign relations policy.⁵ While met with occasional resistance,⁶ Selassie asserted his authority as divine and enlightened, which proved valuable when Italy colonized Ethiopia in 1937⁷ after 3 years of fighting.⁸ By entering the world stage, Selassie’s victory over Italy caused the Rastafarians in Jamaica to view him as the second coming of Christ: the new Messiah that would deliver the African race to salvation through repatriation.⁹ While Selassie, a member of the EOC, did not view himself as godly,¹⁰ he understood the connection the Rastafarians felt to him and did not attempt to stifle a movement that aligned with his goal of improving Africans’ lives around the world.
While it is clear that Selassie’s leadership style played a significant role in the Rastafarian’s belief that Selassie was the Messiah, it was only through reggae music that the ideas of Pan-Africanism and African anti-colonialism spread beyond the African diaspora, and thus cemented Selassie’s role as both a political and religious groundbreaker. While some scholars view Selassie’s status as a representation of anti-colonialism as fraught due to his difficulties with protecting minorities within Ethiopia,¹¹ others view these weaknesses as justifiable due to the cultural and political victories he inspired and won. Through modernizing Ethiopian Christianity and engaging Ethiopia with Western powers, Haile Selassie’s use of transformational leadership not only freed the Ethiopians from Italian colonial rule but became the second Messiah in the eyes of the Rastafarians. By demonstrating African anti-colonialism, Selassie unintentionally, but nonetheless remarkably, brought about a new age of resistance and pride to the African diaspora.
After a 79-year reign, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik II, died in 1913 and was succeeded by his grandson Lij Iyasu. However, due to growing suspicions that Iyasu had converted to Islam,¹² he was deposed 3 years later and replaced by Menelik’s daughter, Zawditu.¹³ Haile Selassie, then known as Ras Tafari Makonnen, was simultaneously named regent and heir,¹⁴ creating tension between the ruling pair. While Selassie had received missionary education and met with foreigners, Zawditu’s education was limited to reading holy books.¹⁵ These differing upbringings led to vastly different ideologies, which proved decisive in Tafari’s ability to secure the throne. In 1930, Zawditu died,¹⁶ and Emperor Haile Selassie I began creating a new Constitution that would strengthen and modernize the Imperial government through its Christian foundation.
The Constitution of 1931 demonstrated a transaction of power between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Emperor. While Selassie had complete authority over the state’s affairs, the EOC gave Selassie legitimacy by identifying that he was defensor fidei or defender of the faith, and “emperor by divine mandate.” Additionally, the Constitution reduced the power of hereditary privilege by defining a process by which the ruling elite was chosen by the Emperor, strengthening Selassie’s ideological control of the state. While Selassie lost some of his judicial power, “more than half of all the articles (in the Constitution) were devoted to defining his sacredness, inviolable dignity and unquestionable power.”¹⁷ By strengthening and centralizing the regime’s authority, Selassie’s influence over the Church grew into reforms. Selassie first encouraged the Church to engage with the outside world more significantly, namely by being warm to Catholic missions. When Ethiopia entered the League of Nations, Selassie met with the Macedonian deacon Aristocle Spirou, whose relationship with Selassie helped Ethiopia engage internationally¹⁸ and assert its roots as one of the first kingdoms to adopt Christianity.¹⁹ Secondly, Selassie called for the clergy to understand better the context the Church played in the state’s affairs. One of Selassie’s goals included gaining autocephaly from the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, which would only be possible with a clergy supportive and aware of this change’s political benefits. Selassie did not intend to assert Ethiopia as a religiously homogeneous society under the EOC, but rather to strengthen his power through a singular religious identity of which he derived and maintained total authority.²⁰ Selassie’s efforts to reform and modernize the Ethiopian Orthodox Church led to broad administrative centralization, which concentrated power in the Emperor through divine sovereignty. Since Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, these changes were necessary for Selassie to authoritatively enact the revolutionary changes in foreign policy he hoped to make.
By entering Ethiopia into the League of Nations, Selassie strived to fortify Ethiopia from foreign aggressors through Western aid and to include Ethiopia into international policy conversations. Before Selassie became Emperor, he went on a tour of Europe from 1923–1924, during which he entered Ethiopia into the League of Nations in an attempt to lead his kingdom away from its state of immobilism. During this transition, tensions between Zawditu’s belief in total independence, even if it meant weakness, and then-Tafari’s realization that protection was worth dependence on foreign powers²¹ continued to grow. Given Ethiopia’s victory over Italian aggression in 1896, the first time an African nation defeated the colonialist attempts by a European country,²² many traditionalist Ethiopians opposed the 20-year peace treaty Selassie had created in 1928 and his decision to engage with Western powers.²³ The opposition faced by the Emperor led Selassie to argue that “we need European progress only because we are surrounded by it. That is at once a benefit and a misfortune.”²⁴ However, the benefits afforded by the League of Nations proved to be hollow until the outbreak of World War II.
While the League of Nations’ failure to protect Ethiopia from Italian invasion decimated Ethiopians, it provided Selassie with an opportunity to address the world during the 1930s, asserting himself as an African leader with a willingness to face European enemies and bystanders. Even though Ethiopia had entered the League of Nations in 1923, a 1925 letter between Italy’s Mussolini and the British Ambassador Sir Ronald Graham, who was stationed in Rome, gave Italy complete economic influence over Ethiopia.²⁵ By providing Italy with this power, the British ambassador disregarded Ethiopia’s status as a member of the League and gave Italy international backing for their colonial intentions. In 1934, Italy’s harassment of Ethiopian troops stationed in Walwal, an Ethiopian town next to Italian Somalia, led to the first battle of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Even though Selassie’s troops were on Ethiopian land and the battle resulted in 3 times more Ethiopian deaths, Italy asked Ethiopia for apologies and reparations.²⁶ On October 3, 1935, the Italians invaded Ethiopia without a Declaration of War, leading the League of Nations to identify Italy as the aggressor.²⁷ In the resulting two years of war, Italy illegally used tear-gas and mustard gas against the Ethiopians,²⁸ and roughly 377,500 Ethiopians were killed, compared to 20,000 Italians.²⁹ During a 1936 address to the League of Nations, Selassie condemned the actions of Italy, citing that Mussolini had been preparing for conquest even during Ethiopia’s entrance into the League of Nations, the signing of a peace treaty between the two nations, and Italy’s signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war. Selassie told the League that Italy “was deceiving the whole world.”³⁰
While the Italians took control over Ethiopia in 1937, Selassie’s exile to England offered him time to couple his cause with the fight against fascism before the League of Nations. Before Mussolini allied with Hitler, the British Foreign Office asserted that “the success of our European policy … may be seriously prejudiced if we give even the impression that we are trying to block Italy’s expansionist schemes in Africa.”³¹ Since Britain decided to remain neutral in the Italo-Ethiopian War, Selassie faced the situation his foreign policy changes had hoped to prevent: how to face enemies who had more troops, more money, and more weapons. When Selassie addressed the League of Nations in 1938, he echoed his 1936 appearance,³² saying that “God and history will remember your judgment.”³³ As Ethiopians staged massive resistances against the Italians, even during great famine and violence, Selassie argued that the League is on the path to becoming “a market place in which the independence of peoples becomes the subject of trafficking, a tomb in which international morality is to be buried.”³⁴ While Britain remained Neutral for another year, once Italy allied with Nazi Germany, the British felt that it was necessary to fight alongside the Ethiopians.³⁵ Instantly, Selassie became a figure representing anti-fascism, allowing him to be praised by European powers as they hid behind their colonial involvements. After roughly 7 months of fighting, the Ethiopians, aided by the British, proved victorious over Italy.³⁶ However, as news of Britain’s late involvement in Ethiopia continued to spread, African nationalists in the Caribbean and United States began to pursue a “more militant anti-white pan-Africanism,”³⁷ sowing the seeds for Rastafarianism and Selassie’s promotion to prophethood.
Rastafarianism came to fruition out of a growing, decades-old Pan-Africanism movement that spanned continents and eventually became a loose set of ideas, primarily centered around Selassie, as diverse as the people who followed it. Pan-Africanism, which foretold a deliverance for the Black race led by a Black King, had begun to take roots in the mid-19th century when the Liberian writer Edward Wilmot Blyden argued that God favored the African race.³⁸ Blyden’s analysis of Psalm 68:31, “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God,”³⁹ led many in the movement to believe that God had destined the Black race for greatness, not enslavement and poverty. Not only did Blyden’s analysis encourage Black people to show pride in their ancestry and history, but to prepare for a future where Africa “would rise up again.”⁴⁰ Blyden’s analysis influenced Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican activist, to begin the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the early 20th century. Referred to as “black Moses,”⁴¹ Garvey argued that Black people should go back to Africa to become more aware of their identity, thus educating more people on the greatness of African history and increasing the quality of life in Africa. Garvey argued that Black people would achieve salvation by returning to Africa.⁴² However, in many of Garvey’s writings, he used Ethiopia interchangeably with Africa, which undoubtedly contributed to the belief that Selassie was the second Messiah. In an undocumented but widely popular phrase, Garvey argued that the Rastafaris should “look to Africa, when a Black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance.”⁴³ Therefore, when Selassie became Emperor of Ethiopia, the Rastafarians’ eyes were set on him.
The belief that Selassie is the second Messiah largely won against resistance from Pan-African leaders due to Selasie’s purported lineage from Jesus and the biblical comparisons made regarding his political successes. While Garvey predicted that a Black king would lead the Black race to salvation, he did not view Selassie as this figure, even calling Selassie “a great coward” for fleeing Ethiopia during the Italian occupation. The Rastafarians nonetheless saw Selassie as the Black King who destroyed white domination and successfully resisted European colonization,⁴⁴ aided by his divine hypostasis. The belief that Selassie was a descendant of King Solomon is widespread both among Rastafarians and Ethiopian Christians.⁴⁵ The Ethiopian epic, the Kebra Nagast, reports that while visiting King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba became pregnant with Solomon’s son. After returning to her kingdom in modern-day Ethiopia, she had Menelik, the first Emperor in the Solomonic dynasty, of which Selassie is a member. Further, since Solomon’s father was King David, many believe that Selassie was related to Jesus.⁴⁶ These biblical comparisons continued to grow as Selassie’s status as an international leader spread through the news of the Italians’ and Ethiopians’ continued struggle.
While Selassie never confirmed his divinity, his use of biblical rhetoric, especially during the Italian occupation, further connected him with God. After British involvement secured Ethiopia’s victory over Italy, Selassie spoke to the Ethiopian people, saying, “no human lips can express the thankfulness which I feel to the merciful God who has enabled me to stand in your midst.”⁴⁷ Selassie and Jesus show similarities through this phrase alone: that just as Jesus walked among the Israelites to spread God’s word, Selassie was “enabled” by God to secure victory from white domination for the Ethiopians. As Selassie recognized the efforts made by the “warriors of Ethiopia,”⁴⁸ the British distributed propaganda throughout their colonies hailing Selassie as the “model Emperor of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) who had not only done much to defeat the Italians but who was engaged in establishing a ‘New Order.’”⁴⁹ With news of Selassie’s victory spreading, the Rastafarians’ hope that they could be delivered from Hell, Jamaica, and led to salvation, Ethiopia/Africa, only grew. By remembering their ancestors who reported that, “by the rivers of Babylon… we wept when we remembered Zion,”⁵⁰ Ethiopia, as the only country to overcome colonization successfully, became the Zion the Rastafarians hoped to reach.
Over the next 25 years, Rastafarianism strengthened within the Caribbean. Thus, Selassie’s visit to Jamaica in 1966 provided him with an opportunity to speak about his goals for the African race before followers eager to see their Messiah. Henock Mahari, an Ethiopian reggae musician, reported that when Selassie stepped off his plane in Jamaica, it started to rain, and therefore, the Rastafarians “see him as a messiah and call Ethiopia their Promised Land and leave their home to come here and finish their life here.”⁵¹ However, after reviewing footage on the tarmac, Canadian journalist Erin MacLeod pointed out that the rain stopped when Selassie arrived in Jamaica, which caused some Rastafarians to believe that Selassie stopped the rain to begin celebrations. Regardless of these interpretations, the highlight of Selassie’s trip was the speech he gave to the Jamaican Parliament. While Selassie did not directly mention Rastafarianism or the claims of his divinity, he did encourage the Jamaicans to focus on building up their country before they considered repatriation to Africa. Selassie emphasized African unity and working together to increase the quality of life for all Africans⁵² — a sentiment that he would carry with him at future international meetings, including at the United Nations.⁵³ By turning the focus away from physically returning to Africa, he helped Rastafarians view salvation through better awareness of their African roots and identity.⁵⁴ However, for the Rastafarians, this was nonetheless an advancement for the “movement that proclaimed the divinity of Ras Tafari and looked to him to destroy white domination and restore to the black race, God’s ‘favoured race’ and a superior race, its destiny, dignity, pride, and status of which it had been deprived by enslavement and colonialism.”⁵⁵ Selassie’s relationship with the Rastafaris is similar to the stories of the weather during his arrival to Jamaica: rather than being built on sacred texts and principles, Rastafarianism is as diverse as the diaspora, with narratives and ideas changing alongside the beaches and deserts of its whereabouts.
The diversity of Pan-Africanism, Rastafarianism, and African anti-colonialism thought spans close to a century, with many contradictions, many unplanned diversions, and many figures. Haile Selassie, while contributing to a remarkable cultural and social movement through Rastafarianism, did not directly integrate himself within its ideology. However, he did bring some of the ideas that began the movement full circle. For example, the Universal Ethiopian Anthem, written in America in 1919,⁵⁶ told Africans to “advance, advance to victory, / let Africa be free / advance to meet the foe / with the might / of the red, the black, and the green.”⁵⁷ When Selassie spoke in Jamaica, he reiterated the sentiments, saying that “wherever there is African blood there is a basis for greater unity.”⁵⁸ Even though Selassie later claimed that he “told them (the Jamaicans) clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal,”⁵⁹ he understood the generations of African activism he was now representing. Through Selassie, the Rastafarians found a man they could herald as their leader and Messiah, inspiring music and messages that encouraged African pride and strengthened Ethiopia’s place among world powers.
Put to the beat of drums, bass, and an electric guitar, reggae became the messenger of Rastafarianism, calling Africans and their allies to fight injustice and increase their awareness of Ethiopia and Selassie. Bob Marley’s “War” inspired Africans to engage in the necessary fight of overthrowing “ignoble and unhappy regimes.”⁶⁰ By setting Selassie’s 1963 speech to the United Nations to reggae beats, Marley helped its message spread across borders. To many, reggae “evokes a message of universal suffrage, and in doing so spreads a theme of class consciousness to the poor, illiterate, and oppressed,” becoming a platform of protest.⁶¹ Even Prince Bede, Selassie’s son who was imprisoned from 1974–1989 following Selassie’s overthrow, said that the “Rastafarians, and Bob Marley … kept Ethiopia on the map” and that the growing interest “in trying to learn about Ethiopia, that it has rich history, is mostly due to Rastafarians.”⁶² As international interest in Ethiopian culture and history grew, Selassie established the Ethiopian Orthodox Church beyond Ethiopia for the first time. Prince Ermias, Selassie’s grandson, said that the Rastafarians “have come to the way of the Orthodox Church through Rastafarianism.” While the EOC does not allow dreadlocks and does not consider Selassie to be the second Messiah,⁶³ even Bob Marley converted before he died in 1981. According to Abuna Yesehaq, the EOC archbishop that Selassie sent to Jamaica, Selassie wanted the Rastafarians to worship Christ, and in Marley’s final days, he was baptized into the EOC.⁶⁴ Albeit a matter of circumstance, Selassie skillfully embraced the Rastafarians while also using his position to strengthen Ethiopia’s international ties.
However, scholars have recently argued that Selassie’s status as a representation of anti-colonialism has been romanticized through reggae music. The Solomonic dynasty, of which Selassie was a member, engaged in an ideology of colonization and territorial expansion, which led to the enslavement and displacement of native ethnic groups.⁶⁷ Selassie’s early reforms, namely the emphasis on Amharic Christian superiority in the Constitution, silenced the voices of Ethiopia’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.⁶⁸ Marcus Garvey identified some of Selassie’s hypocrisy when he recommended “the Negroes of the world to work for the restoration and freedom of the country without the assistance of Selassie, because at best he is but a slave master.”⁶⁹ Selassie often put his reputation and interest above those of the Ethiopian people, as demonstrated by his inability to abolish slavery until 1942,⁷⁰ when he was thrust into the international spotlight. While it can be debated whether Selassie’s choice to flee the country during the Italian occupation was best for the Ethiopian people, it is evident that Selassie’s status depends more on his international connections rather than success in bettering the lives of Ethiopians. Even during a famine, Selassie spent 35 million dollars on his 80th birthday.⁷¹ Although the ideas that reggae spread across the world were indeed virtuous, Selassie was a complex figure, with a sense of pride that may have been worsened by the Rastafarian’s belief in his godliness.
While the oppressions caused by Selassie’s dictatorship and his colonizer ancestors are stories that must continue to be told, his ideas and efforts to better the African diaspora were nonetheless heard by the rest of the world. Whether it be through the performative goodwill of Western nations or the song lyrics of Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, or dozens of other Reggae musicians, Selassie stood for improving the lives of Africans in the face of rising fascism and, to him, Western democratization. The African people, across their diaspora, have faced the cruelest vices of humanity. Colonialism, enslavement, discrimination, and segregation continue to stain not only human consciousness but the societal structures designed to ensure that everyone has certain fundamental rights. However, through these passages of terror and uncertainty, a shared identity has emerged — one of mustering resilience, hope, and even joy in the face of evil. Central to this identity is faith, and in this case, spiritual foundations that hold oneself, each other, and the world to certain standards of mutual dignity. Even the Emperor’s grandson saw order within Selassie’s ocean-crossing ideological reign, saying that “there’s a logic: because of the history, the connection, what in principle it stood for against an evil, or perceived evil, and a sense of justice.”⁷² Whether it be Marcus Garvey’s pan-African activism, the generations of abolitionists that grew mere anti-slavery rhetoric into total world emancipation, the work completed by students and preachers in the American modern civil rights movement, or the 21st-century protestors who fearlessly face off the sympathizers to identity-based oppression, it was through hope of a new day — or of being led to salvation — that ended each of their intertwined sagas with newfound justice. Haile Selassie created immense change in a world that overlooked Africa’s peoples while simultaneously draining their continent of its resources. Although Selassie’s reign was far from perfect, he demonstrated the power someone can have when stepping across boundaries, into new territories, and even into rooms where their presence is unwelcome. As each generation changes its methods of resistance and focuses of protest, it will be necessary to always ask one another “won’t you help to sing / these songs of freedom? / ’Cause all I ever have / Redemption songs.”⁷³
- Bob Marley, “War,” Rastaman Vibration, Harry J. Studios, Joe Gibbs Studio, 1976, accessed in AZ Lyrics. [https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobmarley/war.html]
2. Haile Selassie, “Address to the United Nations,” in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, (Addis Ababa: Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, 1963), 1963, 374. [Accessed in: https://rastafari.tv/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SelectedSpeechesHIM.pdf]
3. “Billboard 200 Chart.” Billboard, July 10, 1976. [https://rb.gy/jjnbcf]
4. Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991, 2nd ed. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002), 128–131.
5. Paolo Borruso, “Politics and Religion in Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia: Apogee and Crisis of a Confessional African State (1916–1974),” International Journal of Ethiopian Studies 7, no. 1 & 2 (2013): 101–104. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26586233]
6. Zewde, 131–137.
7. Zewde, 166.
8. Zewde, 153.
9. Peter B. Clarke, Black Paradise: The Rastafarian Movement, (San Bernardino, California: Borgo Press, 1986), 46.
10. Erin MacLeod, Visions of Zion: Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised Land, (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 70. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfk00.6]
11. Yohannes Woldemariam, “The romantic rewriting of Haile Selassie’s legacy must stop,” Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa, 2019. [https://rb.gy/uarmd3]
12. “How Ethiopian Prince Scuppered Germany’s WW1 Plans,” BBC News, BBC, 24 Sept. 2016. [www.bbc.com/news/world-37428682]
13. “Ethiopia Profile — Timeline,” BBC News, BBC, 12 Oct. 2020.
14. Chris Prouty, “Zawditu,” Historical dictionary of Ethiopia, (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1981), 435.
15. Zewde, 130.
16. “Ethiopia Profile — Timeline”
17. Borruso, 102–103.
18. Bourruso, 103.
19. “Christianity in Ethiopia,” BBC Earth, 2019. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mqPKyGCpA]
20. Borruso, 104.
21. Zewde, 131.
22. Borruso, 101.
23. Zewde, 135.
24. J.A. Rogers, The Real Facts about Ethiopia, (Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1932), 27.
25. Zewde, 152.
26. Zewde, 153.
27. U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943), pp.28–32. [Accessed in: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/italy.htm]
28. Haile Selassie, “Appeal to the League of Nations,” in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, (Addis Ababa: Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, 1963), 1936, 305–306.
29. A. J. Barker, The Civilising Mission: The Italo-Ethiopian War 1935–6 (London: Cassell), 1968, 192–193.
30. Haile Selassie, “Appeal to the League of Nations,” 307.
31. S. K. B. Asante, “The Italo-Ethiopian Conflict: A Case Study in British West African Response to Crisis Diplomacy in the 1930s,” The Journal of African History 15, no. 2 (2013): 302. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/181074]
32. Haile Selassie, “Address to the United Nations,” 377.
33. Haile Selassie, “Appeal to the League of Nations,” 314.
34. Haile Selassie, “At the League of Nations in 1938,” in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, (Addis Ababa: Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, 1963), 1938, 322.
35. Zwende, 176.
36. Zwende, 176.
37. Asante.
38. Clarke, 34.
39. Ps. 68:31 KJV.
40. Clarke, 34.
41. Clarke, 35.
42. Clarke, 36–38.
43. E. Cashmore, Rastaman: The Rastafarian Movement in England, (Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 2013), ch. 2, p. 9.
44. Cashmore, ch. 2, p. 9.
45. MacLeod, 68.
46. “Religions — Rastafari: Haile Selassie and Africa.” BBC, BBC, 21 Oct. 2009. [https://rb.gy/zydyvn]
47. Haile Selassie, “Triumphant Entry — Victory Day,” in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, (Addis Ababa: Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, 1963), 1941, 332.
48. Haile Selassie, “Triumphant Entry — Victory Day,” 332.
49. Clarke, 47.
50. Ps. 137 KJV.
51. MacLeod, 67–68.
52. Haile Selassie, “Addresses House of Parliament in Jamaica,” in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, (Addis Ababa: Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, 1963), 1966, 140–144.
53. Haile Selassie, “Address to the United Nations.”
54. Clarke, 51–52.
55. Clarke, 46.
56. William Alexander Stephenson, “The Universal Ethiopian Anthem and How it Came to be Written,” Negro World (1923).
57. Ben Burrell, Arnold Ford, “The Universal Ethiopian Anthem,” 1919.
58. Haile Selassie, “Addresses House of Parliament in Jamaica,” 144.
59. MacLeod, 70.
60. Bob Marley, “War.”
61. D. Chad Spiker, “Reggae As Social Change: The Spread of Rastafarianism,” The Dread Library, 1998. [Accessed in: https://debate.uvm.edu/dreadlibrary/spiker.html]
62. MacLeod, 71–72.
63. Clarke, 53.
64. Ewart Walters, “Bob Marley: From Rasta to Christian,” The Gleaner, 2016. [https://rb.gy/puoqqq]
65. Ronald Riggio, “Transformational Leadership,” in S.J. Loped, ed., Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2009), 994–997.
66. Haile Selassie, “Mercy Proclamation,” in Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, (Addis Ababa: Imperial Ethiopian Ministry of Information, 1963), 1940, 331–332.
67. Woldemariam.
68. Borruso, 103.
69. Woldemariam.
70. Hannibal Goitom, “Ethiopian Emperors and Slavery,” In Custodia Legis, Law Librarians of Congress, 2012. [https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/01/ethiopian-emperors-and-slavery/#:~:text=180]
71. Woldemariam.
72. MacLeod, 73.
73. Bob Marley, “Redemption Song,” Africa Unite EP no. 10, Tuff Gong Studios, 1980, accessed in Genius. [https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-redemption-song-lyrics]
