T. Ras Makonnen

Makonnen was born George Thomas N. Griffiths in Buxton, British Guiana. His paternal grandfather was reputedly born in Tigre, Ethiopia, and was taken to British Guiana by a Scottish miner. Makonnen completed his secondary school in Guyana, before leaving in 1927 to study mineralogy in the United States of America. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in 1935, Makonnen changed his name to emphasize his African roots. He became an integral part of the Pan-African movement in Britain and collaborated closely with George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, and others, to organise against the British Empire.[3] His children are T'Shai R. Makonnen, Desta Makonnen, Lorenzo Makonnen and Sheba Makonnen.https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T._Ras_Makonnen&action=edit Quotes A Guyanese by birth and a Kenyan by citizenship... these two aspects of my life are accidents of history—my roots and destiny are in the continent of Africa.https://sahistory.org.za/people/anton-muziwakhe-lembede?hl=en-US#:~:text=On%2010%20September%201944%20the%20Youth%20League,ANC%20Provincial%20Assistant%20Secretary%20in%20the%20Transvaal. We could not rely solely on pious declarations or speeches. Pan-Africanism had to be financed, housed, and organized from the ground up.https://sahistory.org.za/people/anton-muziwakhe-lembede?hl=en-US Our aim was to create a movement that wasn't dependent on foreign benefactors or European political parties, but rooted in the self-reliance of Black people themselves.https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/people/kid=163-574-656/?hl=en-US Accomplish the end which every honest human being must desire by means other than communism, and communism need not be feared.https://archive.org/?hl=en-US The appeal of Africa to West Indians and Afro-Americans was neither symbolic nor ceremonial, but an opportunity to achieve the ultimate objective: a free and self-governed African continent.https://archive.org/?hl=en-US References