subject: HIM and Brown vs. Board of Education case

Haile Selassie I be praised.

Below are excerpts from the Jubilee Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I

First Visit to the United States
(1954)
presentation at the Marcus Garvey Center in Brooklyn, New York, May 29,
2004:

THE HIGH-POINT OF US-AFRICAN RELATIONS: BROWN VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION
DECISION AND THE VISIT OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, EMPEROR HAILE SELASSIE
I OF
ETHIOPIA.

It has already been stated that His Imperial Majesty’s Visit to the
United
States in 1954 marked the high-point of US-Africa relations. This was
represented by the US-Ethiopia Mutual Defense Agreement and the
establishment of the Kagnew communications facility which became the
major
US sigint ("signal intelligence") listening station monitoring all High
Frequency radio messages. It was also represented in the linking of the
civil rights struggle of Africans in American with the struggle for
African
Liberation on the African Continent. Sundiata Acoli, an Afrikan
Liberation
soldier imprisoned in America, writes:

“Afrikans from Afrika, having fought to save European independence,
returned
to the Afrikan continent and began fighting for the independence of
their
own colonized nations. Rather than fight losing Afrikan colonial wars,
most
European nations opted to grant ‘phased’ independence to their African
colonies. The US now faced the prospect of thousands of Afrikan
diplomatic
personnel, their staff, and families coming to the UN and wandering
into a
minefield of incidents, particularly on state visits to the rigidly
segregated [Washington] DC capital. That alone could push each newly
emerging independent Afrikan nation into the socialist column. To
counteract
this possibility, the US decided to desegregate. As a result, on May
17,
1954, the US Supreme Court declared school segregation illegal.”

Just prior to His Imperial Majesty’s arrival in the United States, an
editorial in the Ethiopian Herald newspaper of May 22, 1954 stated, “So
intermeshed are the interests of our present day world that whatever
happens
in one part may have repercussions in wide areas elsewhere. The United
States Supreme Court’s decision last Monday on segregated state schools
in
that country takes its place in this category of events.” Sensitive to
embarrassment before the world that the spectre of racial segregation,
particularly in education, might have during the visit of a Black
Emperor of
Ethiopia, the US passed the Brown vs. Board of Education decision when
it
did, just one week before His Imperial Majesty’s arrival, in order to
“show
off” the progress the US was making in race relations. According to the
United States Government's Amicus Curiae brief to the US Supreme Court,

“It is in the context of the present world struggle between freedom and
tyranny that the problem of racial discrimination must be viewed . . .
For
discrimination against minority groups in the US has an adverse effect
upon
our relations with other countries. Racial discrimination furnishes
grist
for the Communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts even among
friendly
nations as to the integrity of our devotion to the democratic faith.”

The Chicago Defender newspaper ran an article during His Imperial
Majesty’s
visit entitled “Integration On Display For Selassie At Capital” and
stated
that,

“Colored Washingtonians were much in evidence both in official and non
official capacities here Wednesday as the nation’s capital greeted
Emperor
Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia. . . . The government lost no
opportunity to present colored Americans in a favorable light during
the
Emperor’s stay here. It was obvious that the state department realized
that
his visit on the heels of the Supreme Court decision offered a good
opportunity to counter Communist racial propaganda which has plagued
this
nation in world forums.”

A Cleveland Call and Post editorial stated that, “The nation’s Chief
Executive [President Eisenhower] has repeatedly stated that the stigma
of
racial discrimination is the greatest weakness in our defense against
world
communism . . . .” Addressing the issue after receiving an Honorary
Doctorate of Laws from Howard University on May 28, Emperor Haile
Selassie
said, “the World is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of
contributions made by colored peoples everywhere to higher and broader
standards of social concepts. Events of the recent days, here in the
United
States, have brilliantly confirmed before the world the contributions
which
you have made to the principle that all men are brothers and equal in
the
sight of God.”

Asked by a reporter at a New York Press Conference on June 1, 1954 what
he
thought about the recent United States Supreme Court decision outlawing
racial segregation in the public schools, His Imperial Majesty Haile
Selassie replied,

“This historic court decision resting on your Constitution will win the
esteem of the entire world for the United States. And in particular, it
will
win the esteem of all the colored people of the world.” Asked the same
question in San Francisco on June 14, His Imperial Majesty said, “The
decision will not only strengthen the ties between Ethiopia and the
United
States, but will also win friends everywhere in the world.”

Another article, which appeared on June 8, 1954, was headlined,
“Emperor
Selassie Links Negro With Africans Throughout World.” According to the
Chicago Defender, Haile Selassie’s Special Message to the African in
America:

“My message to the colored people of the United States is that they
continue
to press forward with determination their social and intellectual
advancement, meeting all obstacles with Christian courage and
tolerance,
confident in the certainty of the eventual triumph of justice and
equality
throughout the world. The people of Ethiopia feel the strongest bond of
sympathy and understanding with the colored people of the United
States. We
greatly admire your achievements and your contributions to American
life and
the tremendous development of this great nation.”

Just before the start of Haile Selassie’s visit to the US, the British
in
East Africa launched “Operation Anvil” against the mounting strength of
the
African Freedom Fighters called “Mau Mau”. More than 40,000 British
troops
captured 26,500 “suspects” and held them in concentration camps. Just
over a
year later, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks embodied that courage and
determination and defied Montgomery, Alabama’s bus segregation laws by
refusing to give her seat to the white man, kicking off the civil
rights
movement in America. By 1957, Ghana had become the first African nation
to
achieve its independence.

By January 4, 1965, the New York Times was reporting that Malcolm X had
gotten 33 African Heads of State to support his Organization of Afro
American Unity (OAAU) petition to the United Nations and that the US
State
Department, the CIA and the FBI noticed that African leaders were now
openly
attacking the US

By February 16, 1965, Malcolm X was denouncing the 1954 Brown vs. Board
of
Education decision as “Tokenism”:

“From 1954 to 1964 can easily be looked upon as the era of the emerging
African state. And as the African state emerged . . . what effect did
it
have on the Black American? When he saw the Black man on the [African]
continent taking a stand, it made him become filled with the desire to
take
a stand . . . Just as [the US] had to change their approach with the
people
on the African continent, they also began to change their approach with
our
people on this continent. As they used tokenism . . . on the African
continent . . . they began to do the same thing with us here in the
States .
.. . . Tokenism . . . every move they made was a token move . . . .
They came
up with a Supreme Court decision that they haven’t put into practice
yet.
Not even in Rochester, much less in Mississippi.”

Relentlessly seeking to educate the African in America about Africa,
Malcolm
X began making Africa’s independence struggle and its relationship to
the
civil rights struggle a focus of his speeches.

Malcolm X was killed on February 21, 1965. Two weeks later, the New
York
Times ran a story headlined “World Court Opens Africa Case Monday”
which
stated that “The International Court of Justice will open oral
proceedings
Monday in a case linking the segregation struggle of the American Negro
and
the fate of 430,000 African Bantus and bushmen . . . .” At issue is a
four-year effort by Ethiopia and Liberia to bar South Africa from
applying
her race separation or apartheid doctrine in South West Africa which
she
controls. The two African complainants, searching for arguments to
defeat
race-separation policy, have hit on the obvious parallels between the
two
separations. Almost certainly they will cite the American school
segregation
cases beginning with the history making decision of May, 1954 in Brown
vs.
Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court found that separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

Just before Malcolm X’s murder, Burundi Prime Minister, Pierre
Ngendandumwe,
a major supporter of the OAAU petition, was assassinated by Gonzlave
Muyinzi, a man who worked at the US Embassy where the CIA was located.
Four
days after Malcolm X’s murder, a Kenyan government official who
supported
the OAAU petition was assassinated.

Regarding the South West Africa case at the International Court of
Justice,
at issue was the policy of racial segregation. The San, Khoihoi, Ovambo
and
Herero tribes lived in general isolation from Europeans until
Portuguese
explorer Batolomeau Dias landed in 1488. He was followed by hunters,
missionaries, explorers and a small number of British and American
whalers.
The Dutch took over the only deep water port in Namibia (Walvis Bay)
but
this was taken over by the British in the 18th century. A German
merchant
called “Ledertitz” set up a town on the coast and it was from this
foothold
that German South West Africa was established in 1884. In the next
three
decades, the Germans bought or stole all the land of the natives, and
bloodily suppressed African resistance. The biggest uprising against
the
Germans was made by the Herero, whose revolt in 1904 cost 60,000 lives
becoming the first genocide of the Twentieth Century. In 1915, during
World
War I, the German Colony was conquered by military forces of South
Africa.
Germany renounced sovereignty over the region in the Treaty of
Versailles,
and in 1920 the League of Nations granted South Africa a mandate over
the
territory. The “mandate” stated that the well being and development of
those
peoples in former enemy colonies not yet able to stand by themselves
formed
a “sacred trust of civilization” and that “the tutelage of such peoples
should be entrusted to advanced nations . . . who are willing to accept
it.”
This meant that the racist white minority of South Africa had, under
the
Covenant of the League of Nations, accepted the responsibility to do
the
utmost to promote the material and moral well-being and the social
progress
of the inhabitants of the country.

In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly requested South Africa to
submit
a trusteeship agreement to the UN to replace the mandate of the defunct
League of Nations; South Africa refused to do so. In 1949, a South
African
constitutional amendment extended parliamentary representation (and
thereby
the racist policy of apartheid) to South West Africa. The International
Court of Justice, however, ruled in 1950 that the status of the mandate
could be changed only with the consent of the UN. South Africa
subsequently
refused to accede to UN demands concerning a trusteeship arrangement.
Aroused by the steps that the government of South Africa was taking to
establish apartheid in the mandated territory, Ethiopia and Liberia
took the
case to the International Court of Justice. It was their contention
that,
since the Brown vs. Board of Education decision ruled that racial
segregation was unfair, did not promote the material and moral
well-being
and social progress of blacks, and violated their human rights, then
applying racial segregation in the form of apartheid in South West
Africa
could not be said to promote the moral and material well-being and
social
progress to the black people in that territory, and thus, South West
Africa
should be granted their independence.

On December 7, 1960, HIM Haile Selassie remarked, in response to a
toast by
Liberian President William Tubman, that

“This same spirit of collaboration on problems of mutual concern
continuing
at an accelerated pace today in the policies which these two African
states
are pursuing to the end of eradicating racial discrimination, that
ignoble
and most infamous of prejudices, from the face of the earth. Ethiopia
and
Liberia are today pressing a legal action before the International
Court of
Justice at the Hague, for the lifting of the mandate held by the
Republic of
South Africa over the territory of South-West Africa. We re-affirm here
now
our determination to pursue this course to its successful conclusion.”

On February 2, 1962, HIM Haile Selassie said,

“The apartheid policy of the racist government of the white minority in
South Africa continues to subject our African brothers, who constitute
the
overwhelming majority in that country, to untold humiliation and
oppression
.. . . .the unfortunate condition in which our African brothers find
themselves in South-West Africa under the notorious and deplorable
policy of
apartheid and ruthless administration of South Africa is equally
depressing
and intolerable. However, We are convinced that before long the
continued
efforts of the United Nations and the legal proceedings instituted at
the
International Court of Justice by our Government and that of our sister
state Liberia will bear fruit.”

Then, on May 26, 1965, just two months after the murder of Malcolm X
and the
New York Times article announcing the start of the South West Africa
case
and linking it with Malcolm X’s petition to the United Nations, HIM
Haile
Selassie said,

“In South Africa and South West Africa, the policies of apartheid and
oppression are becoming increasingly unbearable. The South African
Government [Ras note: like the US Government Federal Bureau of
Investigations Counter-Intelligence Program or COINTELPRO] is
accelerating
its ruthless campaign: a methodological campaign of arresting daily,
detaining without trial and torturing the Africans and their leaders
who are
struggling for their fundamental human rights and freedom. All the
peace-loving countries of the world must act together to force the
colonial
governments of South Africa and Portugal to desist from these policies
-
policies which are inhuman, policies which are detrimental to the peace
and
security of the ENTIRE WORLD - and grant independence and freedom to
these
oppressed people.”

A year later, while at the Organization of African Unity on July 7,
1966,
HIM Haile Selassie said,

“You are meeting today in this very Hall which gave birth to the
Organization of African Unity barely two and a half years ago in order
to
consider and find a solution to the Southern Rhodesian situation which
has
posed a grave challenge not only to the OAU but also to the
independence of
Our individual states and indeed to the national liberation movements
of
Angola, Mozambique, South West Africa, South Africa, . . . All forces
of
good, wherever they may be found, must be mobilized to uproot the white
supremacists in Rhodesia and in Southern Africa. All freedom loving
peoples
must co-operate to destroy this deadly cancer of human liberty and
equality.
After all, at issue is not the loss of freedom to four million Africans
but
the survival of human liberty. The world, therefore should not condone
the
perpetration of one of the greatest political crimes in human history.”

On July 18, 1966, the International Court of Justice rendered its
Judgment
in Ethiopia v. South Africa; Liberia v. South Africa:

“In its Judgment on the second phase of the cases the Court, by the
President’s casting vote, the votes being equally divided
(seven-seven),
found that the Applicant States could not be considered to have
established
any legal right or interest in the subject matter of their claims and
accordingly decided to reject them.”

Four months later, at the opening session of the OAU on November 6,
1966,
His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie stated:

“For a number of years now the problem of South West Africa has become
the
major concern of the African countries. Liberia and Ethiopia, as former
members of the League of Nations, acting on behalf of all African
States,
had sued South Africa for violating her mandate in South-West Africa by
introducing the policy of apartheid into that territory and by failing
in
her obligation to promote the interest of the African population. After
six
years of litigation, the International Court of Justice decided that
the two
states did not establish legal status in the case to stand before the
Court,
thus reversing its judgment of jurisdiction given in 1962. This
unfortunate
decision has profoundly shaken the high hopes that mankind had placed
in the
International Court of Justice. The faith man had that justice can be
rendered is shattered and the cause of Africa betrayed.”

Apartheid laws of South Africa, by this time, had been extended to the
country. The UN continued to debate the question, and in June 1971 the
International Court of Justice ruled that the South African presence in
South West Africa was illegal. However, South Africa continued to
govern the
territory. As a result, the South West African People’s Organization
(SWAPO), a black African nationalist movement led by Sam Nujoma,
escalated
its guerilla campaign to oust South Africans. South Africa continued to
resist eviction until December 1988, when it agreed to allow “Namibia”
to
become independent.

Thus, one can see that the victory of Haile Selassie over Mussolini and
the
Fascists in 1941, and HIM Haile Selassie's "Coming to America" actually
provoked the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. The case was
significant
not only in terms of American history, but in terms of the African
Liberation struggle and, therefore, world history. Today, even African
American scholars do an injustice by failing to link the Brown v Board
of
Education decision to the African Liberation struggle led by His
Imperial
Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I. As a result, the public is taught
that the
Brown vs. Board of Education was only a significant element in the
civil
rights struggle instead of the human rights struggle which Malcolm X
was
illustrating back in 1964-65.

During this 50th Anniversary of Emperor Haile Selassie I first visit to
the
United States, the Issembly for Rastafari Iniversal Education (IRIE)
has
taken up the task of correcting this scholarship and to keep the focus
on
the brilliant light of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, His
Imperial
Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I.