My mother’s father, when visiting us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, boldly told me at age 12, early one morning: “I ain’t no nigger. I’m an Ethiopian.” This statement has steered me since, propelling me onward in my study of ancient African civilizations and cultures.
After all, if my grand-daddy is an Ethiopian, then, I must be too!
Even my worldly grandfather might have been surprised to learn, that the word “Negus” or “Nagus” means King or sovereign in the Ethiopian tongue. “The word negus is a noun derived from the ancient language Ge'ez verbal root N - G - Ś meaning ‘to reign;’” says Wikipedia, being mere letters away from the derisive term “nigger,” that was applied to, and used by, African slaves and their descendants, for centuries in the Americas and Caribbean.
While a student at Howard University years later, I came very close to marrying an Ethiopian student of Amharic origin, who was both beautiful and intelligent. But, alas, I was already committed to another beautiful and intelligent African American woman, whom I did later marry from my St. Louis home. Alas, such is life and love.
Apart from its denotation, Ethiopia or Aethiopia, has acquired an ancient, honorable cultural connotation celebrated, and copied by ancient Greeks and others, as the founders of Egypt or Kemet.
Friday, October 10, 2014
AETHIOPIA AND ME
AETHIOPIA AND ME
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Friday, October 10, 2014
My mother’s father, when visiting us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, boldly told me at age 12, early one morning: “I ain’t no nigger. I’m an Ethiopian.” This statement has steered me since, propelling me onward in my study of ancient African civilizations and cultures.
After all, if my grand-daddy is an Ethiopian, then, I must be too!
Even my worldly grandfather might have been surprised to learn, that the word “Negus” or “Nagus” means King or sovereign in the Ethiopian tongue. “The word negus is a noun derived from the ancient language Ge'ez verbal root N - G - Ś meaning ‘to reign;’” says Wikipedia, being mere letters away from the derisive term “nigger,” that was applied to, and used by, African slaves and their descendants, for centuries in the Americas and Caribbean.
While a student at Howard University years later, I came very close to marrying an Ethiopian student of Amharic origin, who was both beautiful and intelligent. But, alas, I was already committed to another beautiful and intelligent African American woman, whom I did later marry from my St. Louis home. Alas, such is life and love.
Apart from its denotation, Ethiopia or Aethiopia, has acquired an ancient, honorable cultural connotation celebrated, and copied by ancient Greeks and others, as the founders of Egypt or Kemet.
My mother’s father, when visiting us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, boldly told me at age 12, early one morning: “I ain’t no nigger. I’m an Ethiopian.” This statement has steered me since, propelling me onward in my study of ancient African civilizations and cultures.
After all, if my grand-daddy is an Ethiopian, then, I must be too!
Even my worldly grandfather might have been surprised to learn, that the word “Negus” or “Nagus” means King or sovereign in the Ethiopian tongue. “The word negus is a noun derived from the ancient language Ge'ez verbal root N - G - Ś meaning ‘to reign;’” says Wikipedia, being mere letters away from the derisive term “nigger,” that was applied to, and used by, African slaves and their descendants, for centuries in the Americas and Caribbean.
While a student at Howard University years later, I came very close to marrying an Ethiopian student of Amharic origin, who was both beautiful and intelligent. But, alas, I was already committed to another beautiful and intelligent African American woman, whom I did later marry from my St. Louis home. Alas, such is life and love.
Apart from its denotation, Ethiopia or Aethiopia, has acquired an ancient, honorable cultural connotation celebrated, and copied by ancient Greeks and others, as the founders of Egypt or Kemet.