"Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is at hand!" prophesied Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr., in 1927 to his Kingston congregation. Tafari Makonen was born July 23, 1892, a direct descendant of Makeda, the queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of ancient Israel; and, in 1928, bearing witness to Garvey's statements the previous year, Ras Tafari was crowned His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God. Three years later, Selassie introduced Ethiopia's first constitution and created its first legislature.
When Mussolini's army invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Selassie took up arms personally, and fought the fascist Italians on the northern front. After seven months of dignified battle, Selassie went into exile, issuing a call of conscience at the League of Nations to protect weak countries from the strong. He was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year. During his exile, Selassie's sons were executed, and his wife and daughter died in captivity. But, in 1941, Selassie strode back into Ethiopia, lions by his sides, and retook his throne.
Eritrea had been an Italian colony since its consolidation in 1890 until the end of World War II, when it became a British protectorate. In 1950, the United Nations resolved Eritrea into an independent nation in federation with Ethiopia. Selassie instead annexed Eritrea as Ethiopia's 14th province sparking a war that officially ended in 1991 but broils on to this day.
MP3
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Selassie Is The Chapel(album)
The scheme of buying a spring pig in blossomtime, feeding it through summer and fall, and butchering it when the solid cold weather arrives, is a familiar scheme to me and follows an antique pattern. It is a tragedy enacted on most farms with perfect fidelity to the original script. The murder, being premeditated, is in the first degree but is quick and skillful, and the smoked bacon and ham provide a ceremonial ending whose fitness is seldom questioned.
