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Speaker 1: All right, everybody, it's time for the coronet.

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Speaker 2: Do do do? Oh man, you do that? So good,

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Speaker 2: you guys. We have gotten on the ball and have

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Speaker 2: all of our tour dates locked for the rest of

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Speaker 2: the year, which makes us very happy because we've never

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Speaker 2: been able to get it together all at once like

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Speaker 2: this this early.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we can see the future, and the future is

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Speaker 1: going to kind of play out like this. On May

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Speaker 1: twenty ninth, we're going to be at the Chevalier again

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Speaker 1: in Boston. The next night we'll be back at the

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Speaker 1: Warner Theater in DC. And then the night after that

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Speaker 1: May thirty, first, we're going to be at Town Hall

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Speaker 1: again in Manhattan, New York City.

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Speaker 2: Town That's right, it's a great return to New York.

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Speaker 2: Then we're going to hit the Midwest for a jaunt

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Speaker 2: and what is that August? August seventh, we're going to

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Speaker 2: be at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. Then we're heading

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Speaker 2: over the next night eight to eight to the State

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Speaker 2: Theater in Minneapolis. Can't wait for that one. Yeah, And

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Speaker 2: then we're adding a new city this year. Finally, we're

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Speaker 2: going to Indianapolis to the Egyptian Room on the night

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Speaker 2: and I'm not going to give away the topic, but

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Speaker 2: you Midwest people might want to come, is all I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: Right, And then we're gonna knock the year out of

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Speaker 1: the park by finishing it up in Durham at the

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Speaker 1: Carolina Theater on September fifth, two nights later, will be

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Speaker 1: the last show of the tour at our beloved Atlanta's

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Speaker 1: Symphony Hall and our beloved Atlanta, Beloved Georgia, beloved USA.

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Speaker 2: That's right, So listen up everyone. There as an artist

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Speaker 2: presale that's us Tuesday the twenty seventh, that's today from

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Speaker 2: ten am Eastern to Thursday to twenty ninth at ten

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Speaker 2: pm using r code, s YSK live yep.

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Speaker 1: And then the venues and promoters want to get on

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Speaker 1: the pre sale action, so on Thursday the twenty ninth,

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Speaker 1: from ten am to ten pm local time, they'll be

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Speaker 1: selling pre sale tickets too, and then public sale happens

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Speaker 1: right chuck on Friday, March first at ten am local time.

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Speaker 2: That's right local to whatever venue you're going to. Public

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Speaker 2: on sale Friday March first, So.

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Speaker 1: Head on over to stuffushouldo dot com and press the

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Speaker 1: tour button, or else you can go to link tree

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Speaker 1: slash s YSK and get all the info and ticket

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Speaker 1: links you need there too.

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Speaker 2: And we can't wait to see everybody all the rest

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Speaker 2: of this year. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a

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Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's

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Speaker 1: Chuck and it's just the two of us, and we

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Speaker 1: are here to just wrap it up. Rap rap rap,

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Speaker 1: I have a little chat, a little talk, and just rap,

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Speaker 1: just the two of us. We do that every time

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Speaker 1: Jerry's not here. That song every time we reference it

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Speaker 1: some way, shape or form. It's not that great of

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Speaker 1: a song.

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Speaker 2: Oh God, please tell me you're joking.

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Speaker 1: No, I'm actually not. I think it's one of those

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Speaker 1: ones I've just heard too many times. Sorry, it's all right.

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Speaker 1: I can't listen to Journey any longer either, If that

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Speaker 1: makes you feel any better.

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Speaker 2: Well, this is Bill Withers, all right.

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Speaker 1: But I'm sick of that song.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: I think Austin Powers was the one that put it

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Speaker 1: over the top.

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Speaker 2: Was it in that movie? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: He turned it into like a rap what yeah? With

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Speaker 1: him and Mini Me?

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Speaker 2: Oh god?

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Speaker 1: No, wonder who thought Mini Me was going to show

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Speaker 1: up in the Hyle Selassie I did not until just now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, same here. This is a complicated episode about a

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Speaker 2: complicated story.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And the reason why we should just come out

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Speaker 1: of the gate and explain why this is so complicated.

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Speaker 1: Number one, we're talking about a human being who ruled

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Speaker 1: a nation, one of the most powerful nations on the

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Speaker 1: continent of Africa, for virtually his entire lifetime. Right, There's

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Speaker 1: a lot that can happen during that time. You can

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Speaker 1: make a lot of enemies, you can become revered, and

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Speaker 1: so as a consequence, the guy did a lot of stuff,

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Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff, a lot of shady stuff,

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Speaker 1: a lot of downright evil stuff. And over the course

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Speaker 1: of the time that he was ruling and then beyond,

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Speaker 1: some people came to venerate him as a god, like

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Speaker 1: a god on earth. Other people came to loathe them

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Speaker 1: as a murderous colonizer. Other people saw him as a

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Speaker 1: modernizer of a nation. There's so many different opinions about

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Speaker 1: this guy that it's really gonna be tough to cram

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Speaker 1: it all in into this one episode. But we're gonna,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna try. We're gonna make it if we try.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think aside from the god thing, which

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Speaker 2: you know, we'll get to. I think he kind of

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Speaker 2: was a lot of those things. He did modernize Ethiopia

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Speaker 2: and he was a progressive voice for Africans, but he

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Speaker 2: also did a lot of bad things, and it seemed like,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, for my it seemed like the last

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Speaker 2: twenty years of his life he did a lot more

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Speaker 2: bad than the first like forty years of his rule.

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Speaker 1: That's what I got to. He started to phone it in,

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Speaker 1: I think, and be awful. Well that's a consequence of

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Speaker 1: phoning it.

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Speaker 2: In, you know. Yeah, but when you if you do

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Speaker 2: a little research on Highly Selassie, you'll see a lot

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Speaker 2: of articles like praising him, like really strongly, and then

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Speaker 2: a lot of articles that are like, why are we

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Speaker 2: rewriting this the history of this person to not include

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Speaker 2: any of the bad stuff.

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Speaker 1: Well, what's amazing is you can actually there's an answer

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Speaker 1: to that question. The reason why is because of reggae.

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Speaker 1: You can thank reggae for reforming the image of Highly

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Speaker 1: Selassie across the world. It's amazing, it's astounding, it's it's

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Speaker 1: been really effective. Yeah, So Chuck, we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about Highly Selassie, who is the Ruler of Ethiopia, the

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Speaker 1: Emperor of Ethiopia. In fact, he had one of the

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Speaker 1: most amazing titles of any ruler anywhere. When he became emperor,

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Speaker 1: his official title was His Imperial Majesty, the Conquering Lion

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Speaker 1: of the Tribe of Judah, highly Selassie, the First elect

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Speaker 1: of God, Emperor of Ethiopia. That was his full time,

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Speaker 1: which is just straight up impressive.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there were a lot of different titles that he

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Speaker 2: had over the years, and a lot of different names

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Speaker 2: for the different titles. He gets kind of can get

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Speaker 2: in the weeds with that stuff. I just did not well.

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Speaker 2: But he also had another title at the same time,

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Speaker 2: which I can't even find right now, but we'll get to.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about Ethiopia, the country

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Speaker 1: that he ruled. You know, those of us off the

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Speaker 1: continent considered Ethiopia is like a cohesive whole nation, But

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Speaker 1: like most nations across the world, on any continent, it's

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Speaker 1: actually an assemblage of different smaller units that were eventually

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Speaker 1: brought together and unified into a nation like we recognize today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and unified as sort of a should be in quotes.

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Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, that's a good point.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is in the Horn of Africa, and

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Speaker 2: like you said, it was home to lots of civilizations

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Speaker 2: over the course of you know, ancient history and then

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Speaker 2: you know, over through time, and it was it was

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Speaker 2: a pretty big power. It is unique for that area.

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Speaker 2: And then it was one of the first Christian nations

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Speaker 2: and remained a Christian nation despite being completely cut off

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Speaker 2: from the rest of the Christian world on all sides basically.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was one of the oldest around. It's

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Speaker 1: state religion is Christianity, I think Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, that

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Speaker 1: branch of the Christian Church. And since like I think

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Speaker 1: the fourth century see at least, so for a very

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Speaker 1: long time, it's been a Christian nation and that meant

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Speaker 1: that it had like pretty good relations with other Christian

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Speaker 1: nations around the world. But also it traded with the

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Speaker 1: tribes in Arabia, it traded with others in the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: Like it was a really important power for a really

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Speaker 1: long time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And we should probably talk about the

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Speaker 2: Slomonic dynasty. Yeah, while is in King Solomon, the Coronation

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Speaker 2: of Yakuno, and you know, we're doing our best with

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Speaker 2: a lot of these names I tried to look most

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Speaker 2: of these up.

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Speaker 1: By the way, Well how's this one go?

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Speaker 2: Well, this one goes Yakuno Amlac in twelve seventy. And

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Speaker 2: this is important because, like I said, is in King Solomon.

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Speaker 2: This dynasty basically says, we are the direct descendants of

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Speaker 2: King Solomon and Queen of Sheba from the Bible, and

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Speaker 2: the line of Judah is our symbol. And you know,

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Speaker 2: this is the sort of solemn line that as we'll see,

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Speaker 2: would you know eventually d Halli Selassie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's found among the Amhara people, which are

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Speaker 1: one of the groups of people living in the Ethiopian

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Speaker 1: region at the time. And some people say that this dynasty,

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Speaker 1: this lineage of rulers is the oldest in the world.

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Speaker 1: If you credit that as factual or even roughly factual,

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Speaker 1: that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba produced Menelik

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Speaker 1: the First as a son who became the first ruler

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Speaker 1: of this Solomonic dynasty, then that's we're talking like three

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Speaker 1: thousand years essentially of rule by this one group in

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Speaker 1: this one area. Historians say that's a great story. Also,

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Speaker 1: Menelik the First is said to have brought the arc

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Speaker 1: of the Covenant to Ethiopia where it's supposedly being hidden

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Speaker 1: or kept, but really we can date it as far

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Speaker 1: back as twelve seventy, which is nothing to sneeze at,

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Speaker 1: when Yakuno Ambloc was definitely coronated. Since twelve seventy there's

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Speaker 1: been nothing but solomonic rulers ever since then. That's a

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Speaker 1: pretty pretty good track record.

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Speaker 2: Frankly, yeah, for sure. But again that's not to say

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Speaker 2: that there was like complete unity under that rule throughout

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Speaker 2: the years. In the eighteenth then early into the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 2: Ethiopia was very fractured. There were a lot of feudal kingdoms,

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Speaker 2: a lot of different like you mentioned, really religions and

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Speaker 2: ethnicities are sort of you know, co mingling with one another.

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Speaker 2: And eventually, as far as our story goes, unification around

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Speaker 2: the eighteen fifties is when things really sort of get

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Speaker 2: well more unified.

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Speaker 1: Right, And I was wondering what the answer is, like

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Speaker 1: if there is a definitive answer. Is unification a good

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Speaker 1: thing because it keeps formerly warring neighboring groups from warring,

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Speaker 1: or is it a bad thing because these groups were

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Speaker 1: warring for a reason and now they're kind of smushed together,

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Speaker 1: whether they like it or not. Yeah, you know, I

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Speaker 1: wonder if it's a case by case basis, or if

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Speaker 1: there's a right way to do it or a wrong

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Speaker 1: way to do it, or that you shouldn't do it

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Speaker 1: at all. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: It's a good question.

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Speaker 1: So by the nineteenth century, Emperor Menelik the Second, who

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Speaker 1: took the throne six or so hundred years after his

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Speaker 1: namesake did, who found the Solomonic dynasty, became the ruler

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Speaker 1: of a unified Ethiopia. And that's really where the story

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Speaker 1: kind of begins as far as where our protagonist, Liej

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Speaker 1: Tafari Makonan is concerned.

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Speaker 2: That's right, because he was born July twenty third, eighteen

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Speaker 2: ninety two, just what three years after Menelik the Second

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Speaker 2: was crowned, right yep, So you know we're talking about

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Speaker 2: highly Selassie. But as you said, born Lidge Tafari. Lidge

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Speaker 2: means child of Tafari is one who is respected or feared.

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Speaker 2: So Lidge Tafari Maconin is child of Maconin who is

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Speaker 2: respected and feared.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and his dad was raz which means Prince Macanin,

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Speaker 1: So his dad was a prince already it's pretty good birthright,

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Speaker 1: you know, especially in a feudal society that I was

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Speaker 1: born into. But even more than that, his great grandfather,

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Speaker 1: Sahale Selasse had been emperor of the Kingdom of Shuwa

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Speaker 1: before Ethiopia was unified. So this guy had like literal

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Speaker 1: royal blood and was part of that Solomonic dynasty just

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Speaker 1: by birth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you said his dad was prince. The word

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Speaker 2: there would be ross, And that's important to just put

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Speaker 2: a pin in that because if you put Ross and

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Speaker 2: Tafari together, you will eventually get Rastafari.

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Speaker 1: Which sounds vaguely familiar. I can't put a finger on you.

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Speaker 2: Already mentioned reggae music, so that's where this is all eading.

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Speaker 2: But Ross means prince. His father was a governor of

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Speaker 2: the Harar province advisor to the emperor, which at this point,

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Speaker 2: I believe you already said was Menelik the second ye

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Speaker 2: and the first During the Menelik the second years, and

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Speaker 2: when Tafari was young, this is when Italy had its

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Speaker 2: sort of first first push into trying to basically you know,

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Speaker 2: this is a period of rapid colonization from the Europeans

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Speaker 2: all over Africa, think it was called the Scramble for Africa,

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Speaker 2: and this was Italy's first push because they had land

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Speaker 2: on both sides of Ethiopia and Eritrea and Italian Somaliland,

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Speaker 2: and Ethiopia was kind of right there in the middle.

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Speaker 2: But they were defeated that first time when fifteen thousand

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Speaker 2: Italians were beaten back by about seventy five thousand Ethiopians

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Speaker 2: in the Battle of Adwa.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so Menelik the second became just revered for that,

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Speaker 1: like this African country beat back in a colonial power

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Speaker 1: from Europe, and it was a huge national black eye

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Speaker 1: on Italy that they carried a soreness for for decades afterward,

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Speaker 1: as we'll see. But it was an enormous feather in

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Speaker 1: the cap of Ethiopia because at the time this Scramble

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Speaker 1: for Africa, one group after another was falling prey to

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Speaker 1: these colonial powers who were just moving in, moving their people,

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Speaker 1: in taking over, forcing a lot of these people in slavery,

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Speaker 1: extracting their resources. In Ethiopia said no, nice, try Italy,

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Speaker 1: We're going to remain self sufficient and self determined.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. His mother, Yeshimabet, died when

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Speaker 2: he was about two years old, and he went on

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Speaker 2: to get a really sort of unusual and vast education

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Speaker 2: under the teachings of French missionaries, other teachers and scholars.

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Speaker 2: He learned which was unusual at the time for where

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Speaker 2: he was a lot of European history and languages, and

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Speaker 2: that education would set him up for his later life

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Speaker 2: on the international stage.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. I mean, his familiarity with Europe would

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Speaker 1: be extraordinarily helpful because Europe, even though some of the

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Speaker 1: former Age of Exploration powers like lost their clout, Europe

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Speaker 1: still remained super important in Africa because they were colonizers.

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Speaker 1: So to have a rapport with European powers was very

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Speaker 1: helpful keeping them at bay and also making Ethiopia a

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Speaker 1: really treasured asset or ally to those European powers too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 1: It was just a good position for him to be in.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, and he ingratiated himself. He was very much

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Speaker 2: loved on the international stage for most of his life,

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Speaker 2: which you know, was kind of at odds with how

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Speaker 2: he was viewed at home for the last couple of decades.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, because he was born into that royal lineage,

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Speaker 1: he kind of made moves throughout the court in at

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Speaker 1: age thirteen, he was made a de Jasmach, yeah, which

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Speaker 1: is essentially like a count. And from that point on

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Speaker 1: he just kept rising and rising further and further up

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Speaker 1: in importance in the aristocracy. Right, because we should say,

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Speaker 1: at the time, and for a very long time, Ethiopia

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Speaker 1: was a feudal agrarian society and economy where peasants worked

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Speaker 1: the land and had to give a lot of the

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Speaker 1: fruits of their labor over to land owners who didn't

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Speaker 1: do anything except extract labor and goods from the peasantry.

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Speaker 1: And then it went up and up and up, and

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Speaker 1: then you had an aristocracy that was sitting at the

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Speaker 1: top that was also tiered, and at the very top

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Speaker 1: of this where the rulers of Ethiopia, of which ros

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Speaker 1: Tafari was rising in rank and influence.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And slavery played a big part in

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Speaker 2: that and a big part in this story, as you'll see.

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Speaker 2: So just sort of setting that up. Over the next

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Speaker 2: few years, he was, like you said, kind of rising

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Speaker 2: through these different positions. He got married in nineteen eleven

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Speaker 2: to a noble woman named men in Asphalt and had

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Speaker 2: six kids, and they stayed married until she died in

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, and then in nineteen thirteen, Menelect the

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Speaker 2: second died, and there was a very sort of interesting

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Speaker 2: power struggle that went on because his literal successor was

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Speaker 2: his grandson Iyazu the fifth, and he was not good

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Speaker 2: enough for the job. Evidently he was not a good

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Speaker 2: manager of people, didn't show a lot of promise as

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Speaker 2: a ruler, and even more importantly, he was I mean,

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Speaker 2: the rumor was that he actually converted to Islam. He

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Speaker 2: was not friendly to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and because

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Speaker 2: of these rumors and he was deposed as emperor. He

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Speaker 2: was arrested and spent the rest of his life in

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Speaker 2: detention wherein his I believe, in nineteen sixteen, his aunt

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Speaker 2: Zuditu was crowned empress.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then so I don't I didn't get this.

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Speaker 1: I didn't understand why I couldn't find what maybe you know.

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Speaker 1: Simultaneously or shortly after Zuditu was crowned, Empress, Tafari became

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Speaker 1: Ras Tafari and the de facto ruler of Ethiopia as

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Speaker 1: the Supreme region an heir apparent? Was it because he

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Speaker 1: was young still? I guess he was twenty five at

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Speaker 1: the time. Was it because he was a man and

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Speaker 1: she was a woman and a woman that always have okay, gotcha? Okay,

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Speaker 1: So they were basically power sharing, even though because he

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Speaker 1: was a man, I'm guessing he was just deferred to

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Speaker 1: over her in a society that requires an empress to

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Speaker 1: have like a male regent with her right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's basically I saw that in two

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Speaker 2: or three different places that if he I'm sorry, if

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Speaker 2: Zuditwo was was a man, he may have still had

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Speaker 2: that position, but he would not have nearly the power

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Speaker 2: that he had as a man because she was a woman.

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Speaker 1: Gotcha. So as this de facto ruler of Ethiopi, he

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Speaker 1: started making moves on the world stage, and there was

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Speaker 1: a difference between his and Zudituo's politics from the outset.

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Speaker 1: She was more conservative than he was. He was much

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Speaker 1: more being younger, I think was a big part of it,

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Speaker 1: much more progressive minded, much more interested in modernizing, much

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Speaker 1: more interested in opening the country to internationalism. And so

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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty three, Ethiopia became a member of the

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Speaker 1: League of Nations, just the third African country to do so,

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Speaker 1: and that was after South Africa and Liberia and that

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Speaker 1: was like one hundred percent Tafari's doing from what I understand.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Part of that required the pledge to you know,

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Speaker 2: abolish slavery. As we'll see, that was in nineteen twenty three,

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Speaker 2: and the abolition of slavery in Ethiopia did not happen

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Speaker 2: in full for many, many decades, So it was you know,

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Speaker 2: that's another you know, sort of a thread that goes

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Speaker 2: to this story of just how long it took to

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Speaker 2: get slavery abolished there because it was such a part

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Speaker 2: of their tiered system in Ethiopia.

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Speaker 1: And it's worth saying too, I think, Chuck, that African

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Speaker 1: continental style slavery was much different from the kind of

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Speaker 1: slavery that was developed through the Transatlantic trade that was

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Speaker 1: established here in the United States in the Americas.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I think literal human ownership was not the case.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there was still like a curtailment of liberty,

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Speaker 1: but at the same time, you lived in the same

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Speaker 1: house and ate the same food that you're you know,

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Speaker 1: putative owner ate. It was just you were just treated

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Speaker 1: much differently, and you don't want to sanitize it because

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Speaker 1: you're still you still didn't have freedom like an individual

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Speaker 1: human being should have. But just compared to just the

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Speaker 1: horrors of the transatlantic chattel slavery practices like the African

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Speaker 1: slave trade was, it was just not like it at

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Speaker 1: all in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So in nineteen twenty eight he was

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Speaker 2: named Nebus, which is a title equivalent to king, but

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Speaker 2: it's not the same as, you know, the king, as

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Speaker 2: we would think, because it's still below emperor. And he

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Speaker 2: started traveling the world basically and every single way, basically

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Speaker 2: becoming the face of Ethiopia despite the fact that he

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Speaker 2: was not emperor, you know, going to Jerusalem, going to Rome,

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Speaker 2: going to Paris, meeting with King George, to the Fifth

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Speaker 2: in London, and it was sort of a world tour

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Speaker 2: where he placed himself expressly, sort of in the limelight.

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Speaker 2: As you said that, you know, he had different politics

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Speaker 2: than the Empress herself, and that combined with him sort

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Speaker 2: of putting himself on the world stage in front of

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Speaker 2: her essentially did not sit well to the point where

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Speaker 2: her husband led a rebellion goog Saulle where he wanted

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Speaker 2: to install himself as emperor, but he was defeated by

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Speaker 2: Tafari was killed and then within a couple of days later,

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Speaker 2: Zuditu died of unclear circumstances, and I think we all

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Speaker 2: know what that means.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's a rumor that she died of shock

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Speaker 1: at the news of her husband's death. But more likely

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Speaker 1: there's just kind of this idea that Holly Selassie was

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Speaker 1: not above poisoning opponents and rivals, and that's entirely possible

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Speaker 1: that's how she went away.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And we should also point out prior

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Speaker 2: to this, prior to nineteen thirty through the nineteen like

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Speaker 2: late nineteen twenties, he was really doing a lot of

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Speaker 2: that progressive work, building roads. He established a national bank,

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Speaker 2: He redid the judicial system that kind of said, you know,

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Speaker 2: we need a more you know, modern Western based judicial

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Speaker 2: system and not this, you know, you steal love for

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Speaker 2: bread and we cut off your hand Biblical style.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, he continued that on when he became ruler

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Speaker 1: after Zudido was gone November Tewod nineteen thirty, which is

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Speaker 1: the holiest day of days for the Rasta religion. As

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Speaker 1: we'll see, Tafari became highly Selassie again. His imperial majesty,

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Speaker 1: the conquering line of the tribe of Judah. Highly Celassie

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Speaker 1: the first elect of God Emperor of Ethiopia, and one

401
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Speaker 1: of the first things he did was to write the

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Speaker 1: first written constitution that Ethiopia ever had, and it was

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Speaker 1: extremely progressive, especially considering again this is a feudal agrarian

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Speaker 1: society we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for them, it was very very much

406
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Speaker 2: a step forward. He did create their first parliament, but

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Speaker 2: it was pretty clear with this, and even when they

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Speaker 2: made further changes I think in the nineteen fifties to

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Speaker 2: the constitution that it was still you know, the emperor

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Speaker 2: had the last say over everything.

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Speaker 1: Right, So I think that kind of goes to show

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Speaker 1: the kind of governing he did, Like he was well

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Speaker 1: aware of if you, you know, agree to something but

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Speaker 1: figure out a way to not do it or to

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Speaker 1: keep it from taking any power away from you, it

416
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Speaker 1: can really placate people a lot. He was kind of

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Speaker 1: asterful with that, and that's a good example of that.

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Speaker 2: All Right, Is that a good long intro?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Forgot, we haven't taken a break yet, So we'll take

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Speaker 2: a break, we'll come back and we'll pick up with

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Speaker 2: Italy's second push into Ethiopia in the nineteen thirties. Right

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Speaker 2: after this.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so about five years after Holly Selassie or i

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Speaker 1: should say Tafari McConnon became Holly Selassie, Italy came a

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Speaker 1: call in again. Remember you said that Italy had Eric

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Speaker 1: to kind of the north and the east and Somaliland

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Speaker 1: to the south in the east. Is that correct? Still?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they wanted to build a railroad through Ethiopia

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Speaker 2: to connect those.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So again, by this time, Mussolini has come to

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Speaker 1: power in Italy and he has revived national pride. That's

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Speaker 1: a big thing that you'll see in history. Fascism tends

434
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 1: to follow a major humiliation of a country on a

435
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: world stage, like Germany was humiliated in the Treaty after

436
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 1: World War One and just really punished, and fascism developed

437
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: out of that. Italy lost a lot of standing as

438
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 1: a colonial European power after it was beaten back by

439
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 1: Ethiopia in the nineteenth century. Fascism followed after that. You

440
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:51,199
Speaker 1: really want to be careful about stuff like that, not

441
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: addressing the fascism that can follow, and this is another

442
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: example of that. So Mussolini came along and he's like, hey,

443
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 1: you remember the time that Ethiopia defeated US, Well, we're

444
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 1: going to make that up. We're going to go invade

445
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 1: Ethiopia again, and this time we're going to do it

446
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: with industrial warfare.

447
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a much different deal. This time. They

448
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 2: had far better equipment and weaponry and ammunition. I believe

449
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 2: they were still maybe technically outnumbered, but the way Ethiopians

450
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 2: were fighting was sort of outdated to the war machine

451
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 2: of Italy at this point. So it was it was

452
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 2: a real David versus Goliath kind of situation. So this

453
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 2: is when Selassie has a real chance to kind of

454
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 2: take center stage internationally, even more so by you know,

455
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 2: started you know, sort of rattling the chains of the

456
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 2: League of Nations, which Italy was a member of as well. Yeah,

457
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 2: saying like, hey, what's going on here? Is it right?

458
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,719
Speaker 2: We need some help. It was called the Obscenia crisis,

459
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 2: Obscenia being the exonym for Ethiopia that US all used

460
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 2: basically more than Ethiopia and my research. And it was

461
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 2: a dark time in this war. They were getting beaten

462
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 2: down really badly. He was exiled because the Italians were

463
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 2: literally encroaching to the capital. So he went to French

464
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 2: Somaliland in May of nineteen thirty six, which effectively ended

465
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 2: the war, like least as far as Italy's concerned. They

466
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 2: were like, the war is over and we won.

467
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now we're occupying Ethiopia. Like you said, we won.

468
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 1: The way that they won was through mustard gas. It

469
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: was essentially a huge campaign of muster gas. There were massacres,

470
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: they set up concentration camps. It was a horrible occupation,

471
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 1: just exactly the kind you would expect from like a

472
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 1: first half of the twentieth century colonizing power. And yet

473
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: they historians still say that Ethiopian never was colonized. It

474
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: was occupied by Italy, but they didn't get a chance

475
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: to colonize, which is often follows occupation. They just remained

476
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: in the occupation stage for about five years. And over

477
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: the course of that five years, Selassie was in exile.

478
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: I think he was in bath, England, where he ran

479
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: a government in absentia and still kind of tried to

480
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 1: keep his rule going, but from outside the country which

481
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: was occupied by the Italians, which is tougher than it

482
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: even sounds.

483
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, So he is sort of rattling the saber

484
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 2: to the League of Nations, so much so that Time

485
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 2: magazine named him Man of the Year in nineteen thirty five.

486
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 2: But the problem was is that Europe was still courting

487
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: Italy at this point. They weren't They hadn't fully jumped

488
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 2: over to Germany side, and so they were sort of

489
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 2: on a sort of a high wire there trying to

490
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 2: court Italy. And even though they're a member of the

491
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 2: League of Nations and they were attacking another member of

492
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 2: the League of Nations, they didn't want to do anything

493
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 2: to tick off Italy too much. So the new British

494
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 2: Foreign Secretary guy named Samuel Horr got into private talks

495
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 2: with the French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and they came

496
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 2: up with the Horror Laval Pact, which essentially said, Ethiopia,

497
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 2: if you give up basically half of your land to Italy,

498
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 2: we can make the fighting stop. They never released it,

499
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 2: but it was leaked to the press and there was outrage,

500
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 2: of course, and it essentially was sort of the first

501
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 2: blow to what would be the death of the League

502
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 2: of Nations.

503
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think another thing that Holly Selassie's speech did

504
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: to contribute to the League of Nations was to basically

505
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: point out like, hey, you guys aren't doing anything that

506
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: you agreed to do, Like all of you condemned Italy's

507
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: invasion as a straight up invasion. And here I am

508
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: to ask you to help me buy arms. Don't even

509
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: give me, just give me money so I can go

510
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: buy arms, and you still won't do it. What's the

511
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,479
Speaker 1: use of this thing? So that was another blow to it.

512
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: And then subsequently Highly Selassie became even more I guess,

513
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: kind of respected on the world stage. That speech was

514
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: a huge watershed moment in his rule, in his lifetime,

515
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: even he became essentially celebrity, like you said, Time magazine

516
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,479
Speaker 1: named a Man of the Year. Apparently there was an

517
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: expression in America around that time that developed that was, well,

518
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: if that's so, then I'm highly Selassie. And then there

519
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: was a song too. Olivia helps us with this. She

520
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: turned up a mention of him in a shanty and

521
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: old shantytown. I'd be just as sassy as highly Selassie

522
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: if I were a king.

523
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 2: So things are not going well. He is, like you said.

524
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 2: He went from Prince Somaliland in exile to England and

525
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 2: then finally in nineteen forty one, World War two as

526
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 2: well underway. And this is well after Italy had joined

527
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 2: up with the Germans and England, you know, finally helps

528
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 2: out mainly because Italy and Germany had threatened British territory

529
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 2: in Africa. England finally steps up in nineteen forty one

530
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 2: and says, all right, well you're going to help you

531
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 2: out here because we're sort of threatened as well. We

532
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 2: have some area here in the Sudan, and so we're

533
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 2: going to help you assemble an army here and take

534
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 2: back your capital.

535
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: Yes, so that was a huge deal. It was not

536
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: just the British Army, but the British Army working in

537
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: conjunction with these fighters that were assembled in Somaliland. And

538
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: there was a guy who doesn't get his due, Lorenzo

539
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 1: teaz Oz, who on behalf of Selassie, organized this basically

540
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: guerrilla army that fought against the Italians and ended up winning,

541
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: pushing the Italians out of Ethiopium back into Eritrea.

542
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 2: That's right, and so he came back May fifth, nineteen

543
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 2: forty one, returned to the capitol, gave a big speech saying,

544
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 2: you know, we need to get the Italians out of here.

545
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 2: But we need to do it in a way that's

546
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 2: not like they were doing things, because you know, we're

547
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 2: above that kind of thing. And so he's finally back

548
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 2: on his throne. He begins in the early nineteen forties

549
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: to abolish slavery. I think in nineteen forty two is

550
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 2: when they say he officially abolished it, but it took

551
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 2: a long time for it to completely, you know, get

552
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 2: removed from the system. But you know, like I said,

553
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty three is when they said, hey, get

554
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 2: rid of slavery. So that was a couple of decades.

555
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Marcus Garvey, who as we'll see, played a

556
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: huge role in the development of the cult of personality

557
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: for Higley Selassie, was turned out to be pretty critical

558
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: of him, and for one reason was because Selassie allowed

559
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: slavery to continue for decades after he became the ruler

560
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: of Ethiopia and Garvey. That didn't sit well with Garvey.

561
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: He also called him a coward for leaving Ethiopia to

562
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: go run the government in Absentia. You can definitely see

563
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: both points of view for him staying or going. And

564
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: it worked out because he sat back on his throne

565
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: again five years to the day after the Italians invaded.

566
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: But regardless of how that happened, when he came back

567
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: to rule again in nineteen forty one, he was more

568
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: well thought of by Ethiopians and the rest of the

569
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: world alike than he was even before the Italian invasion.

570
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: So he got back to modernizing again, and he put

571
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: his foot on the gas I think a little harder

572
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: than he should. I think he was really trying to

573
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 1: make up for the enormous setback that the Italian occupation

574
00:33:58,120 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: had created.

575
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, also a lot of internal strife within Ethiopia after

576
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:10,280
Speaker 2: the United States actually stepped up and helped unite Eritrea

577
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 2: with Ethiopia again in nineteen fifty two. One thing it

578
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 2: did was it gave Ethiopia access to the Red Sea,

579
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 2: which was a big deal, but it wasn't a true

580
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 2: like unification. Eritrea remained had like an independent government in

581
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, still highly Selassie did not like this.

582
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: He wanted more control, and in nineteen sixty two he

583
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 2: dissolved their parliament and basically sort of annexed them, which

584
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 2: led to the creation of the Eritrean Liberation Front the

585
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 2: ELF and basically three decade internal civil war of you know,

586
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 2: kind of constant uprisings within Ethiopia from the Eritreans.

587
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, Eritrea finally regained its independence and I think nineteen

588
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: ninety four years and years of essentially civil war. Because

589
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: again we were talking at the outset of this that

590
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: these were groups of different people. These were different ethnic

591
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 1: groups that had lived in the same area but had

592
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: now been put under unification. They were all now considered Ethiopians,

593
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: but they had their own ethnic consciousness and they did not.

594
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: A lot of them did not like being considered Ethiopians.

595
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 1: I think the Ormo people in particular bristled at the

596
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: idea the most because they had the largest population in Ethiopia.

597
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: And yet the Amhara people of which Hiley Selassie was

598
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: one and the whole Solomonic dynasty was from the Amhara people.

599
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: They were the ones who were ruling things. So imagine that.

600
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: Imagine that this other group that you've been kind of

601
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 1: rivals with for centuries now is telling your group exactly

602
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: what to do, where to live, which taxing you, is

603
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: saying you're with us now, whether you like it or not.

604
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,359
Speaker 1: That was the kind of like internal strife that was

605
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: just kind of rubbing Ethiopia at the edges throughout the

606
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 1: entire the entirety of the highly selassies rule.

607
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, And like you said, he's got his

608
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 2: foot on the gas. In the nineteen fifties, in particular,

609
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:23,399
Speaker 2: in fifty five, they passed a new, a brand new,

610
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 2: brand spanking new, very shiny constitution, further modernizing the judiciary

611
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 2: for one. This time, parliament was elected by the people,

612
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 2: more human rights were guaranteed, but it was still not

613
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 2: like a Western style democracy. Highly Selassi was still very

614
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 2: much in charge and more popular than ever on the

615
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 2: international stage. He's all of a sudden visiting the United States.

616
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 2: I believe FDR invited him after World War Two, but

617
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 2: he never went. So he finally came at Eisenhower's behest,

618
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 2: had a ticker tape parade in Manhattan. Highly Selassie went

619
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 2: to a Yankees game, went to Yosemite National Park, just

620
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 2: does this big, like kind of pr tour through America.

621
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,320
Speaker 2: It's really interesting, Yeah for sure.

622
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: And again like this guy was like Americans couldn't believe

623
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 1: what they were seeing. Like this is a time where

624
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: there was still like segregation in America and here's this

625
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 1: black African leader's who just revered in the United States.

626
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: It's just like cognitive dissonance. But they were just thrilled

627
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: by this guy, right, so highly Selassie ate that stuff up.

628
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 1: He loved that. One of the big criticisms of him

629
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: in retrospect, and I think even at the time, was

630
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: that his preferred company were Europeans and Americans and other

631
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: people of wealthy countries. That's who he liked to rub

632
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: elbows with. That's who was invited to the parties that

633
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: he threw in the royal palaces. He didn't he didn't

634
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 1: seem to think that much about the people he ruled

635
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: and who essentially gave him all the power that he had,

636
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: that he went and used to basically enrich himself in

637
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: his own image.

638
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 2: I think that's a great setup for a break.

639
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh sure, yeah, I don't like to toot my

640
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: own horn, So you just put me on the spot,

641
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: all right.

642
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:44,879
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this, all right. So when

643
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 2: we left off, you were talking about the fact that

644
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 2: Hayley Selassie was very popular internationally, not so much or

645
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 2: not as much at home at least like with everybody.

646
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 2: He had factions of people who loved him in Ethiopia,

647
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 2: but it was complicated and.

648
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: They were probably mostly from the Amhara ethnic group too, remember.

649
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So he's got a situation sort of

650
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 2: where he's getting older, he's trying to push progressive ideals

651
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 2: that are popular with the young people, not as popular

652
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 2: with the older guard, of course, and that creates a

653
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 2: lot of internal strife. And he's also got this sort

654
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 2: of ongoing problem with the Elf. All these ethnicities mixed together,

655
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 2: there's going to be some strife. And finally, in December

656
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty, he was in Brazil and members of his

657
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 2: imperial bodyguard staged a coup and they proclaimed that his

658
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 2: son Selassie son Crown Prince Asphal Wolsen, was the new emperor.

659
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 2: There were about four days of violence in about three

660
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 2: hundred deaths, but it was suppressed and those leaders the

661
00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 2: formal imperial bodyguards were killed. And this really change things

662
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,959
Speaker 2: as far as sort of setting up the last couple

663
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 2: of decades of Selassie's rule and reign as as basically

664
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 2: a police state.

665
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:16,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yet he still was a shrewd ruler, internal

666
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: ruler that the coup had set up shop in the

667
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: Royal Palace while he was away, and he donated that

668
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: royal palace to establish the university, the first university in Ethiopia,

669
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: which became a Disa Baba University, which is a highly

670
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: respected university today. And so like it was a it

671
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 1: was a really shrewd move on his part, basically placate

672
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: the young intelligensia, who were definitely part of that coup,

673
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: if not you know, in physically, at least in spirit.

674
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: So they were they were like, Okay, we're getting a university.

675
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: And at the same time, he knows he's taking his

676
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: foot off the modernizing gas and he needs to basically

677
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:03,400
Speaker 1: consult his power even further, probably take them back and

678
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 1: remind everybody that he's still emperor.

679
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. One of the truly seems like great

680
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 2: things he did was in nineteen sixty three when he

681
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:19,800
Speaker 2: led the movement to establish the Organization of African Unity THEAU,

682
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:24,399
Speaker 2: which was basically thirty two African nations that had won

683
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 2: independence at that time getting together establishing this union, I

684
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 2: believe it's now called the African Union. And you know,

685
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:35,320
Speaker 2: they had bold, you know, pretty great objectives. They wanted

686
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 2: to improve life for Africans, they wanted to protect the

687
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 2: sovereignty of the countries that had won their independence, and

688
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 2: he was of course chosen as the first president of

689
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 2: the OAU, And he was in his seventies at this point,

690
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 2: like he was getting on up there in age. Yeah.

691
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: And it's ironic because he was like an elder statesman

692
00:41:54,880 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: compared to the much younger, generally democratic leaders that were

693
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:03,800
Speaker 1: the other that made up the rest of the African

694
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: Union countries, right, And they were there, all those younger

695
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: rulers were there, or leaders, I should say, they weren't

696
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:13,959
Speaker 1: rulers because this wave of decolonization had been kicked off

697
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: by Ghana and I think the early sixties, and so

698
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: that was one of the purposes of the African Union,

699
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: or at first the OAU, was to basically say, okay,

700
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: we need to like level set again. This is a

701
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,839
Speaker 1: new continent. We're taking it back, we're setting up new

702
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 1: governments and all that. So it's kind of ironic that

703
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: Higley Selassie was the first president of the Organization of

704
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: African Unity because he was exactly the kind of person

705
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: who was being toppled elsewhere around Africa, except he was

706
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 1: not toppled because he had never been colonized. Although other

707
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: groups in Ethiopia considered him a colonizer. He managed to

708
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: survive that wave and strangely was made the president of

709
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:57,760
Speaker 1: the OAU.

710
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was just because he was such

711
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 2: a popular worldwide popular figure, is what I can figure.

712
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 2: So it almost seemed like it was like it was

713
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 2: just sort of destined to be that he would be

714
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 2: their first president, even though if they really thought about it,

715
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 2: and I don't even know if they held a vote,

716
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 2: actually I meant to look that up, yeah, or if

717
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 2: he was basically just like, I'll be president, right.

718
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 1: Right, he called president first, I call it.

719
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 2: So toward the end of his run, more criticism coming

720
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:37,240
Speaker 2: him way from within Ethiopia. Their inflation is really high,

721
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 2: there are people living in poverty. Any descent was squash squashed,

722
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 2: Leaders of descent disappeared. He still had a positive view

723
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 2: internationally through all of this somehow, but that was not

724
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter back home.

725
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 1: No, and that kind of stuff was making people bristle

726
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: further and further, not just the other ethnic groups like

727
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: the Oromo or the Somalis, but like even people in

728
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: his own you know, his own group. They were they

729
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: there was a huge problem. No matter how good a ruler.

730
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: He was viewed as there was always going to be

731
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: a people who were saying, it's the nineteen sixties and

732
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: we still have an emperor. Can we look any more backwards?

733
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: Just that alone, yeah, kind of put a time limit

734
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: on how much longer he was going to rule. But

735
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:34,399
Speaker 1: then that whole kind of crackdown phase of his rule

736
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: also really really had a huge hit on his popularity

737
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: too among other quarters.

738
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like when I was thirteen, man, emperors

739
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 2: were all the rage.

740
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point that when he came into power,

741
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: that was that was normal. But he stayed in power

742
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: for so long that he outlived the age of emperors.

743
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 2: Weirdly sixty something years. The other problem, or another problem,

744
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 2: was the fact that he as emperor had a very lavish, luxurious,

745
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:10,399
Speaker 2: some say wasteful lifestyle, which was not a popular thing

746
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 2: to do when your country is struggling in a lot

747
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:17,240
Speaker 2: of ways, certainly when they were hit by their second

748
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 2: really huge famine at the beginning of nineteen seventy two.

749
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,760
Speaker 2: This was a famine in the Wallow Province where eventually,

750
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 2: over the course of three years, by nineteen seventy five,

751
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 2: more than I saw up to two hundred and fifty thousand,

752
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 2: maybe two hundred thousand people died. And he's how much

753
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 2: did he was his birthday party? Thirty something million dollars.

754
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: I spent thirty five million dollars on his eightieth birthday

755
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 1: party in nineteen seventy two while this famine was going on.

756
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, right in the middle of this thing, there was

757
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 2: actual food being I'm not sure what, but there was

758
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 2: food being produced and Walla and he was exporting it

759
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 2: elsewhere at the time.

760
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody pointed out I can't remember which article it was,

761
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:04,960
Speaker 1: maybe one from London School of Economics that said, like

762
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 1: the areas that experienced famine and Ethiopia were the ones

763
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: that were the most restless against his rule.

764
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:13,360
Speaker 2: Oh. Interesting, Like there was one.

765
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: Region that he asked the Brits the bomb in nineteen

766
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: forty two while they were there, like, hey, before you go,

767
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: do you mind bombing this restless region up to the north.

768
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: I think it might have been the Waller region. Yeah, Like,

769
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: if you messed with him, there was a good chance

770
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 1: that you were going to suffer some sort of famine

771
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 1: and exporting the food that you were producing. Again, feudal society,

772
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:38,759
Speaker 1: you could do that kind of thing that would be

773
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: a great way to guarantee you famine. And then even

774
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: without meddling in it directly, whether he did or not,

775
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:50,240
Speaker 1: he definitely tried to downplay it internally and externally because

776
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: he didn't want it to tarnish his reputation. Apparently he

777
00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:56,760
Speaker 1: was mad at the people in the famine stricken areas

778
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: for starving because it looked it reflected badly in him.

779
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:05,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a good look. So things are unraveling,

780
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 2: and it's pretty clear that it's unraveling a lot of

781
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 2: protesters happening. All of a sudden, the union, the labor

782
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,479
Speaker 2: force has gone on strike. This is in nineteen seventy four.

783
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 2: And finally, in the summer of nineteen seventy four, a

784
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 2: group called the DIRG, the Provisional Military Administrative Council, which

785
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 2: were this wasn't upper military brass. They were relatively low

786
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 2: ranking officers and officials. They seize power in nineteen seventy four.

787
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 2: It was a coup and in September of nineteen seventy

788
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 2: four they deposed him, placed him under house arrest and said,

789
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 2: your son, who previously was named emperor, even though that

790
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,439
Speaker 2: never happened, was named emperor once again for a very

791
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 2: short time, from the summer of seventy four to March

792
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:59,920
Speaker 2: of seventy five, when the DIRG abolished the Ethiopian monarchy altogether.

793
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: Yes, so highly. Selassie is still living in the Royal Palace,

794
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:10,800
Speaker 1: but now he's under house arrest essentially, and the DIG

795
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: this new government is led by a guy named Mangiestu

796
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: hall Mariam, and they created what was known as a

797
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: Red Terror like they essentially said we're no, no, committed

798
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:26,280
Speaker 1: tons and tons of war crimes like killed thousands of people,

799
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: tortured tens of thousands of more, and basically said we're

800
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 1: not We're not with the US any longer. We're now

801
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 1: with the Soviet Union and we're just redoing everything in

802
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:40,399
Speaker 1: the most bloody way possible. Unfortunately, they held power for

803
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,760
Speaker 1: the next twenty years. It wasn't until they were deposed

804
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four and replaced by a more democratic

805
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:50,720
Speaker 1: government that they were charged with all the horrible atrocities

806
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: that they had. But long before that happened, while the

807
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: DIRG was just brand new, Holly Selassie was reported as dead,

808
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: I think in August of nineteen seventy five. He was

809
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: found dead in his little apartment in the Royal Palace,

810
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: and the leaders were like, yeah, he had a prostate

811
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: operation a couple of months ago and probably was a

812
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 1: complication from that, but anyway, it's Ethiopian tradition to bury

813
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: people within twenty four hours, so we're going to do

814
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: it in twelve.

815
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. I think that the inside story was

816
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 2: that he was strangled by Dirk soldiers. It seems pretty

817
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:30,799
Speaker 2: obvious he was gotten rid of. I think there were

818
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 2: some people that said that he was in the Crown Prince.

819
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 2: Actually his son said, you know, he was in pretty

820
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 2: good help as far as I knew before he died,

821
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 2: So I know he was eighty three, but he was

822
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:45,440
Speaker 2: not dying. No.

823
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:47,880
Speaker 1: There was another long standing rumor that he had been

824
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: smothered with a pillow. But yes, in just the way

825
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: that he had dispatched the Empress before him. It seems

826
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 1: he had been dispatched as well by the Dirk. And

827
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: then in probably the most insulting way your remains can

828
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: be handled. They found that after Mariam was deposed in

829
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, that he had been buried under the

830
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: laboratory in the Royal Palace.

831
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, with a v laboratory.

832
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it sounds like.

833
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 2: You said, laboratory.

834
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 1: No.

835
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 2: No, So that is highly Silassie. But we of course

836
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 2: have to close by talking about reggae, right.

837
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's a lot of people out there, especially

838
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: in Jamaica, who said he didn't really die and those

839
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 1: weren't his bones that they found and reburied.

840
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you you know, we mentioned early in the

841
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 2: thing Rastafari. Rastafarian theology is basically a reference to his

842
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 2: identity as God as the Messiah. African descended people in

843
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 2: Jamaica had combined elements of Christianity other different religions in Africa.

844
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 2: And this is also during the Back to Africa movement

845
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 2: when there were you know, potentially some people in Jamaica

846
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 2: that were like, no, we need to go back to

847
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 2: the homeland.

848
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I said, Marcus Garvey figures big into the

849
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 1: cold of personality around Holly Selassie. That's largely because in

850
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, Marcus Garvey predicted that when a black

851
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: king shall be crowned in Africa, the day of deliverance

852
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: is at hand and that basically black people would be free,

853
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: and that Ethiopia was that whole location that you wanted

854
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: to go to if you were going back to Africa.

855
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 1: And it just had a huge impact on Jamaica in

856
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: part because on Coronation Day the rains came that ended

857
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: a long standing drought in Jamaica, and they were like, man,

858
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: this Garvey cat knows what he's talking about. And they

859
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 1: became hyper focused on Holly Selassie. So his Coronation Day

860
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 1: was the holiest day or is the holiest day November

861
00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 1: second in the Rastafarian religion. And we keep saying religion

862
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: and theology. That's because Rastafarians believed that Holly Selassee was

863
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 1: God incarnate and still is if you believe that he

864
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: didn't actually die and that he followed in a line

865
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: of I can't remember an ancient priest, Jesus and then

866
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:19,400
Speaker 1: Holly Selassie were the incarnations of God here on earth.

867
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he never claimed to be that. I think

868
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,799
Speaker 2: I've seen that he didn't expressly deny it either. I

869
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 2: think he only went to Jamaica one time though, so

870
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 2: it wasn't like I don't know, it's a very interesting

871
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 2: thing that I don't fully understand, to be honest.

872
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,720
Speaker 1: Well, that time that he went to Jamaica in nineteen

873
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 1: sixty three. That's the second holiest day in the Rastafarian religion.

874
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 1: They call it ground Nation Day. And one hundred thousand

875
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: Rastafarians showed up, and we're just like trying to tear

876
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:55,959
Speaker 1: the plane apart to get him out of there, because

877
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 1: they wanted to see him so badly, like it was

878
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,800
Speaker 1: a big deal. And because so the Rasafarians had generally

879
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:06,319
Speaker 1: been mocked and made fun of by other Jamaicans for

880
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:09,400
Speaker 1: the last few decades, like they've been following Highy Selassie

881
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:14,240
Speaker 1: as their savior for thirty years by then, And after

882
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: he came and Jamaica got to see, like, oh, this

883
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: guy's actually pretty cool. A lot more people became Rastafarians,

884
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:25,280
Speaker 1: including one woman named Rita Anderson who converted after Holly

885
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: Selassie's visit and she became Rita Marley.

886
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man, this one was a lot.

887
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 1: It was a lot. Yeah, And he lives on in reggae.

888
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about Holly Selassie, you

889
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:40,719
Speaker 1: can listen to a bunch of reggae. You can go

890
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 1: read historical accounts, you can read all sorts of stuff

891
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:48,720
Speaker 1: about him, and you'll get just this hugely complex, complicated picture.

892
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I hope he did a good job.

893
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 2: You know what this one did is it as I

894
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:58,760
Speaker 2: was researching it, it laid bare just how little African

895
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 2: history you're taught in an American school.

896
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's one of the reason we wanted

897
00:54:04,840 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 1: to do this, is just to kind of shake that

898
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: up a little bit at least.

899
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 2: Oh no, for sure. But usually when we're researching other

900
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 2: types of history, it's like, yeah, I've sort of heard

901
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 2: this here and there. I don't fully remember, but like,

902
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 2: this was a ground up learning experience for me. I

903
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 2: knew nothing about the history of Ethiopia, so really interesting

904
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 2: stuff it is.

905
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 1: Is also kind of exciting too, because that means that

906
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: there's a whole continent with the rich history that we

907
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:32,280
Speaker 1: haven't even begun to tap into. You know, yeah, totally

908
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 1: look out for more in twenty twenty four. That's right,

909
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about Highley Selassie. I

910
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,320
Speaker 1: think I just explained how you could do that, which

911
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: means that we've already I guess begun.

912
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:51,279
Speaker 2: Listener mail, that's right. This is on ap classes from

913
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 2: our episode on What was that specifically about?

914
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:58,760
Speaker 1: I think that was the pig Malian Effect episode.

915
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Hey, guys, I'm a high

916
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 2: school teacher at a public school in suburban Cincinnata. I

917
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:08,839
Speaker 2: currently teach AP human geography and AP World History. I've

918
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 2: also taught APUs history, AP government, and AP psychology in

919
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:14,880
Speaker 2: the past. Just so you know, the big trend and

920
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:17,880
Speaker 2: AP across the country the last decade plus has been

921
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 2: to open it up to as many students as possible.

922
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:23,720
Speaker 2: We still have a teacher, we still have teacher recommendations

923
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 2: for AP class at our school, but if any kid

924
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 2: wants to take a certain AP class, they can. For

925
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 2: the most part, classes like AP human geography are certainly

926
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 2: more accessible for a lot of students in a class

927
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 2: that requires a lot of prerequisite knowledge like apchemistry. In general, though,

928
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 2: AP classes have changed a lot since the nineties and

929
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:46,080
Speaker 2: are far less exclusive than they once were. And of course,

930
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was like this and you were there.

931
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,919
Speaker 2: You had a test to get into an AP class, right.

932
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:54,239
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, they just thought they didn't stink at

933
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:54,720
Speaker 1: at all.

934
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:58,920
Speaker 2: That's right. Thanks for all you do, guys. Listen to

935
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:01,919
Speaker 2: all the episodes and I include what I learned from

936
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 2: you into my classes. Whenever I can. And that is

937
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 2: from Connor teacher in Cincinnati.

938
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I really hope that some of those AP

939
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:14,840
Speaker 1: teachers who thwarted me time and time again are alive

940
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:18,600
Speaker 1: to see that our work is being used in AP classes.

941
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:21,240
Speaker 1: That's right, man, what a turn of events.

942
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 2: Huh you showed them.

943
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Connor and give us

944
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 1: some great information that will just make our day. We

945
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:31,160
Speaker 1: love to hear that kind of stuff. You can wrap

946
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 1: it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it

947
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 1: off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

948
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

949
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

950
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.