On May 16, 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen, soon to be crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I, conducted an official tour of southern Ethiopia to consolidate power and promote national unity. His visit was aimed at integrating diverse ethnic groups and regions into a modern Ethiopian state amid tensions between central and peripheral areas. The tour included reforms in education, taxation, and infrastructure, and demonstrated Selassie’s vision of modernization. For many Rastafarians and Pan-Africanists, this period represented the emergence of a divinely guided leader. The tour would precede his coronation later that year, which garnered global attention and inspired Afro-diasporic spiritual and political movements.
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