In 1919, Kantiba Gebru Desta was on a mission to the USA for the first time. The New York Times reported on 10 August 1919 (p. X3)
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Notes
In 1933, there were more than 100 African Americans in Addis Ababa and surrounding. Some of them might have come in response to the call of the Ethiopian delegates to the USA in 1919. (There were also attempts in the following years to bring Americans to Ethiopia.)
In 1930, the self-declared Rabbi Joshia Ford (1877-1935) and some of his followers of the Bet Bnai Avraham moved from Harlem to Ethiopia. Joshia Ford was the choirmaster of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Kentiba Gebru Desta and Taamrat Emmanuel, the then Director of the Jewish School in Addis Ababa, were key persons for Ford’s immigration.
It appears that Rev. Bernice (‘Prince’) Albert Hamilton (Dr) was the first Black person from the Americas who was employed by a Protestant organisation to work in Ethiopia for an extended period of time. He originated from [British] Guyana and served as a young man with the British army in Egypt. In 1920, he got married with Maryam, the daughter of the Christian Nile-Nubian Samuel Ali Hussein. Hamilton represented the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) in Khartoum and the surrounding region for decades. He moved to Addis Ababa in _ _ _ (year?) and died there in 1966.
- The BFBS had opened its office in 1926. The Bible Society of Ethiopia was established in 1966 and was led since then by Ethiopians.
It appears that the first Protestant African Americans (from the US) who evangelised publically in Ethiopia were associated to Billy Graham (who preached in Addis Ababa in March 1960): Bob Harrison and singer Jimmie McDonald.
Further reading
Lauche, Gerald. “The Development of the ‘Sudan Pioneer Mission’ into a Mission among the Nile-Nubians (1900-1966).” Unpublished DTh dissertation. Pretoria: UNISA, 2015. [For Hamilton, see p. 133, 220, 236-37; view online]
Roe, James M. A History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1905-1954. [London?] British and Foreign Bible Society, 1965. [Non vidi]
Semi, Emanuela Trevisan. “Between Italy and Ethiopia, Western and African Judaism: The Story of Taamrat Emmanuel, a Jewish Intellectual from Ethiopia”, in From the Other Shore: Transnational Jewish Journeys Along Africa’s Shores, ed. M-P. Ulloa; Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History (Journal of the Fondazione CDEC), no. 19, June 2021. [View online]
Shack, William A. “Ethiopia and Afro-Americans: Some Historical Notes, 1920-1970”, Phylon 35, no. 2 (1974): 142-155. [JSTOR, subscription barrier]
Sholomo Ben Levy (Rabbi). “Biography of Rabbi Arnold Josiah Ford”. [View online]