T. Ras Makonnen (born George Thomas N. Griffiths; c. 7 October 1909 – 18 December 1983) was a Guyanese-born Pan-African activist of Ethiopian descent.
Early life and family
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. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in 1935, Makonnen changed his name to emphasize his African roots. His children are T'Shai R. Makonnen, Desta Makonnen, Lorenzo Makonnen and Sheba Makonnen.
Life in the United States
In 1927, Makonnen went to Beaumont, Texas, where he wanted to study mineralogy. Shortly after his arrival in Texas he was drawn into YMCA activities through which he developed his solidarity with the African cause and laid the foundation for his repute as a gifted speaker. A part-time involvement with the YMCA in soon became a full-time post, which included establishing services for the Black population of the town, including services to businessmen – and even a brass band for the 60,000 Black workers of the Magnolia Petroleum Company. This resulted in speaking engagements around the US and attendance at YMCA international conferences. At one of these Griffith met Max Yergan, who had been a YMCA "missionary" in South Africa; this meeting was likely Griffith's introduction to Africa.
In 1932, Makonnen went north to attend Cornell University, where he briefly studied agriculture and worked in the university's library. Cornell's student body included a number of Ethiopians, with whom he discussed the looming Ethiopian crisis; It was at this time that the former Griffith changed his name to Makonnen. His holidays were spent in Harlem, New York City, where he participated in the agitation against high rents. Makonnen was friends with West Indians and Africans such as future Nigerian president Nnamdi Azikiwe during this period, and with them formed the Libyan Institute, where the members "read learned papers on aspects of Africa". Makonnen also listened on the street corners and at other meetings to Black socialists and communists, including George Padmore, "but never became a party man; [though] I borrowed a lot from them". Makonnen lent his energies to the Brookwood Labor College, working on "a primer on American history and a dictionary of terms essential to the workers' movement".
Makonnen's reading, to judge by his memoirs, was broad; it is known, for example, that he and Jomo Kenyatta visited Jamaican-born Theophilus Scholes to thank him for the great stimulus they had derived from reading his books, which were critical studies of African history and the diaspora. Makonnen was actively engaged in the raging debates of those days on the comparative merits of the views of W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. Makonnen's collaboration with George Padmore, then Malcolm Nurse; a nephew of Henry Sylvester Williams, also dates from this period. At Cornell, he continued his activities as a champion of the cause of Black people. He learnt from men like the economist, Scott-Nearing and the anthropologist Franz Boas. His brief flirtation with the radical American left during this period, drew in his own words, jocular remarks from Azikiwe and Ugandan Ernest Kalibala, who were also in America around that time. A good number of his generation got their early political education from associations on the left of the political spectrum.
Life in Europe
Denmark
In 1935, Makonnen moved to Europe. It was during a brief visit in London, en route to Denmark where he met and shared a platform with C. L. R. James and Jomo Kenyatta at a meeting in Trafalgar Square on the Ethiopian crisis organised by the International African Friends of Ethiopia (IAFE). It was around this time that Mussolini unravelled his designs on Ethiopia that the young Griffiths changed his name to Makonnen, when he was part of a delegation, that included Jomo Kenyatta and ITA Wallace Johnson; to welcome Haile Selassie to the City of Bath.
Together with people like Makonnen Desta, Peter Mbiyu Koinange, Workineh Martin and others, Makonnen worked to publicise the Ethiopian crisis. Makonnen went to the Royal Agricultural College in Copenhagen, Denmark. After about 18 months, Makonnen was deported from Denmark for suggesting that the mustard sold by Denmark to Italy was being used in the manufacture of the mustard gas being used in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.