ABSTRACT
One of the least studied legacies of W. E. B. Du Bois, as a preeminent Pan-Africanist and a scholar, is the collection of his writings on Ethiopia that spanned four decades. His essays on the East African nation appeared throughout the first half of the twentieth century as newspaper columns, journal articles, and book chapters. This chapter serves a few purposes. Since biographers have yet to appreciate the extent of Du Bois’s involvement with Africa, let alone Ethiopia, it fills a gap in the fast-growing Du Boisian historiography. The chapter demonstrates how much Du Bois was involved in the framing of Ethiopian independence as the fulcrum of Pan-African politics. It also credits Du Bois as a major catalyst in the broadening of the Ethiopian national imagination during the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter concludes with a discussion on Du Bois’s Pan-African legacy to Ethiopian studies, an area where the Eurocentric worldview still prevails.
