From David Walker to Barack Obama

Please use the entire Preface by Dr. Maggie Sizer here. ------- “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God ___ Psalm 68:31 The concept of Ethiopianism has been around for a long time. Its origin stems back as far as the 1800’s. To really understand the concept of Ethiopianism, one must first have an understanding of the history of Ethiopia. Ethiopia represents one of the most ancient and long-lived civilizations on our planet. In fact, while Ethiopia was known as a kingdom early as the second century B.C., Ethiopians were also well known to the Greeks perhaps one thousand years before that! Homer in The Iliad (circa eighth century B.C.) writes that Zeus went “to Oceanus, to the blameless Ethiopians for a feast, and all the gods followed with him.” Their history is far older, though. In ancient Egyptian times, when the Ethiopians were known as the Nubians, they even conquered Egypt, establishing Egypt’s Nubian dynasty circa 720 B.C. (The 25th Dynasty lasted from 730-656 B.C.) And, to be sure, Ethiopia existed in Roman Times and has survived as an independent state throughout history. It survived numerous wars of conquest by Islam and Christendom, though Ethiopia was occupied for a very short time by Italy during World War II (in the 1930s and 1940s). Still, Ethiopia maintained its independence and, like Thailand in South East Asia, was itself never colonized. All of this speaks to a resilient people from antiquity down to our own day. The term Ethiopianism was a label used by Caribbean Black and African American intellectuals who held the belief that a restoration for black people would be found. The restoration was to be a freeing of black people from slavery, economic exploitation, and global domination. This book is historical in nature in that it takes us from the writings of David Walker to the election of Barrack Obama as President of the United States. The men and women in this book represent some of the shoulders upon which Barrack Obama is able to stand upon to reach the presidency of the United States. In his own words Barack Obama said at his inauguration address “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, and that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” The book relates the fulfillment of the Ethiopianist concept of equality for all Africans and those of African descent. ---- Dr. Maggie Sizer, Dean, Strayer University, Arlington, Virginia, Campus.