“This evening was unusual. I had to tell my great-grandfather that I was going to Europe. I was excited, and yet something did not feel right because my mother only gave me one day to pack my bags. I remember how she persuaded me to go. She said I was going to see my two cousins who had recently left for boarding school in England. Also, I would go on a skiing vacation to Geneva, Switzerland. I would be back in two weeks. After a lot of agonizing, I resolved to tell my mentor the impending news. I opened the door to his private residence area and saw him standing in the middle of the room near where he had his desk. I bowed down and greeted him with a kiss. He smiled at me and said, ‘Mendin new wedaje? [What is it, my friend?]’ I restated what my mother had told me in a flippant sort of way, hoping he would disagree with her. He had disagreed with her in the past about her insisting on me not wearing any pants because girls only wore skirts. I hoped that he would rule on my side again. I was feeling sad, and my eyes were almost filling with tears. My heart sank when he looked at me and said, ‘Malefia, yihun. [This is acceptable. So be it.]’
Knowing I could not change his mind, I sucked it up and told myself it was going to be OK. At the same time, I did not relish the idea of leaving my home and my family. Besides, I knew I had to travel alone, and that made me concerned. I had this feeling in my gut that this might be the last time I would see my great-grandfather, who had raised me like his daughter since a very young age. I thought to myself, ‘This can’t be happening. No way. I have to come back to Ethiopia one day. This is my birthplace. This is my home.’
While all these thoughts were speeding through my mind, I noticed he slipped a small, sealed white envelope into my hands. ‘This is for your journey,’ he said. I accepted the envelope and bowed again—this time with a lump in my throat—but I was determined not to cry. I turned around toward the door that led out to the hallway. When I opened the envelope, I found several crisp US hundred-dollar bills, which I placed in my purse.”
(Taken from “It was Only Yesterday”, Hannah Mariam Meherete-Selassie, 2018)
“Even this triumphant ticker-tape parade (in Manhattan), though, could not match the rapturous welcome given to the emperor by a jubilant crowd of African-Americans when he visited a Baptist Church on 138th Street in Harlem. The pastor of the church, Reverend Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., greeted Haile Selassie ‘in the name of the 700,000 Afro-Americans of New York City, men and women of every faith, belief, and disbelief’. Powell extolled the emperor as ‘the symbol around which we place all our hopes, dreams, and prayers that one day the entire continent of Africa shall be as free as the country of Ethiopia.’ A 200-voice choir then sang the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s ‘Messiah’; the emperor was visibly moved when he heard the refrain ‘and he shall reign forever and ever’.”
