The Universal Ethiopian Students’ Association (UESA) mobilized the African Diaspora to fight against imperialism , colonialism, and Fascist Italy from 1927 to 1948. Continuing the activism of Ethiopianism , Communism , and Pan-Africanism and fostering the current ideals of the New Negro Movement and Garveyism , the UESA sought to educate the Diaspora on its glorious African past in relation to its current political, economic, social, and cultural conditions. This research critically examines the UESA’s developments and mobilizing contributions in Harlem and throughout the African Diaspora with their literary organ, The African: The Journal of African Affairs; and argues that the UESA played a central role as a mobilized African Diaspora organization through its ideological influences, African Diasporic international network, and the scope of the African. This work also highlights unspoken yet significant activists, such as Willis N. Huggins , Charles Henry Alston , Elton C. Fax , Victoria Johnson Schaak, Gladys P. Graham , and Akiki K. Nyabongo . This is the first study that thoroughly examines the developments and contributions of the UESA and the African.
Joseph E. Harris defined the African Diaspora as a “triadic relationship linking a dispersed group of people to the homeland, Africa, and to their host or adopted countries.”1 As Harris continued to form and shape the area of study, he defined and conceptualized the mobilized diaspora as “people with a consciousness of the identity of their roots and of their occupational and communicational skills, social and economic status, and access to the decision-making bodies of the state.” According to Harris , Africans and their descendants in the Diaspora, “mobilize[d] their communities around race/ethnicity for the exertion of political pressure on elected officials.” These “members of the mobilized diaspora pioneered the establishment of international organizations for the promotion of African consciousness and solidarity.” The leaders, who were prohibited from participating in state foreign affairs, “established their own non-state mechanism to conduct foreign affairs in the interest of Africans and their descendant’s abroad.”2
The UESA matched this description perfectly. They were conscious of the identity of their African roots given the names they chose to represent them. Ethiopian was an identity label meaning universal black after Ethiopia defeated Italy in the 1896 battle at Adwa, which fostered Ethiopianism throughout the African Diaspora . After corresponding with African intellectual and leader Nnamdi Azikiwe, the UESA named their literary organ The African as a symbol of unity of all African descendants across the diaspora. The members of the UESA were conscious of their occupations and communication skills as activist scholars, journalists, artists, and mothers. They were aware of their social and economic status as professionals and students mainly in Harlem but also as members of the diaspora, with access to Emperor Haile Selassie I in Ethiopia and Presidents Edwin Barclay and William V. S. Tubman of Liberia .
The UESA not only mobilized their Harlem community, they helped mobilize the African Diaspora through their literary organ The African: The Journal of African Affairs. In Harlem, they partnered with other Harlem-based literary and debate clubs to host public debates and mock trials to demonstrate the detriments of imperialism to Africa and its descendants. They hosted National Ethiopian Week to galvanize support for Ethiopia and Emperor Haile Selassie . Their fundraising efforts allowed them to contribute $5000 during the depression. Both the UESA and the African educated the people on the glorious African past. Historian Willis N. Huggins taught classes in Harlem and the African printed African History Installments for the first two volumes.
The UESA was successful as a mobilized organization because they were continuing previous waves of activism prior to their inception in 1927. Ethiopianism was the oldest therefore the foundational influence, which is reflective in their name. The Ethiopian Empire’s 1896 defeat of Italy at the battle of Adwa augmented Ethiopianism throughout the African Diaspora . It was a movement that praised Ethiopia for its sovereignty, propagated self-pride, and sought to unify the black world on the basis of race. According to Horace Campbell, “Ethiopianism is a tradition that searched for the glory of the African past in the midst of white western domination.”3
Communism , influenced by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, entered the United States, Europe, and Africa in 1889 when the socialist parties founded The Second International. This form of communism generally opposed African colonialism, however, many individual parties accepted the colonial policies pursued by the governments of the big powers, or did little to oppose them.4 The Negro question, defined by Hakim Adi, was a question of Black liberation in the nineteenth century, which sought a solution on “how the full emancipation of African-Americans would be brought about and how it related to the overall struggles of American workers for emancipation and socialism.” Due to the staunch activism toward the Negro question by Negroes, Adi affirmed, “The first African American Socialists began their activities” during the nineteenth century. Black communists George S. Schuyler and W. A. Domingo contributed articles to The African.5
Black Nationalism was vital to the UESA. In short it was a political, economic, social, and cultural movement that constitutes people of African descent as a separate group because of their shared struggles, experiences, and history. It fostered black identity, called for group solidarity, self-government, and independence. The UESA expressed Black Nationalism every time it praised the sovereignty of Ethiopia and Liberia and throughout the African when it called for postwar self-government and independence in Africa and the Caribbean . The African History Installments, which illustrated the glorious African past, were also an example of Black Nationalism .
Throughout the African Diaspora , organized Pan-Africanism was a prominent liberation solution to the exploitation of Africa and Africans from imperialism . There were three Pan-African Congress meetings prior to the establishment of the UESA; their resolutions concentrated on jobs, equality, self-government, and free education. In 1927, the same year the UESA was established, the fourth Pan-African Congress was held in Harlem, New York. The Pan-African energy stimulated from the meeting was expressed in the creation of the UESA and through its activism.
Harlem’s two current movements, Alain Locke’s New Negro Movement and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) , were extremely influential to the UESA. The New Negro Movement coined and created by Howard University philosophy professor Alain Locke , fostered race consciousness, race pride, and self-determination among the Black masses and the intelligentsia of the United States. “This was the moment in the United States, where the Negro was moving under control of his own objectives;”6 a time for the “Negro to decide what (s)he wants and the price of effort, sacrifice, and self direction that (s)he is willing...