The Atlantic as a River: Ethiopianism and the Black Struggle for Freedom

Session Submission Type: Panel

Description for Program

Taking as its starting point the metaphorical idea of a river as a body of water that can have concurrent developments and interactions of both sides, the papers on this proposed panel will consider Ethiopianism as a Christian social and political movement aimed at achieving political freedom and equality for all peoples of African descent across the Anglophone Atlantic world. Ethiopianism is defined as a Christian ideology, with roots traceable back to the eighteenth century and the black struggle for the abolition of the Atlantic Slave trade, that affirmed as a commandment from the Christian God the initiative that people of African descent needed to claim in the social and political uplift of the African race. The focus of the papers on the panel will be on Ethiopianism as it evolved in the century after the victory represented by the ending of black enslavement in the Anglophone Atlantic, when the shared concern among English speaking black people became defeating white supremacy and European domination.

Sub Unit

• ASWAD

Chair

• Andrew Barnes

Individual Presentations

• Panel Overview: Ethiopianism across the Black Atlantic - Andrew Barnes

• William Henry Sheppard's Ethiopianist Movement - Kimberly Hill

• “Pan-Africanism’s Backwater: Ethiopianism in Colonial East Africa” - Ethan Sanders, Regis University

• Ethiopianism as a Bridge across the Atlantic - Andrew Barnes