SIGNED BY EMPEROR HAILE SELASSIE I OF ETHIOPIA

SELASSIE, Haile. Photograph signed. New York, 1963. Black-and-white photograph, measuring 10 by 8 inches. $800.

Original black-and-white United Nations press photograph of the Emperor Haile Selassie I, signed and dated by him below the image.

The photograph shows Emperor Selassie seated beside his cousin, His Highness Ras Imru Haile Selassie, at a news conference held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during the plenary meeting of the Eighteenth Session of the General Assembly on October 4, 1963. Thought by some to be descended from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, Selassie was the grandson of an Ethiopian princess, who was the aunt of Emperor Menelik II. Although elevated into his position amid great controversy, Emperor Selassie became one of the most prominent heads of state of his time (as well as the longest serving one during the 1960s). Even when Ethiopia succumbed to Italian rule for five years during World War II, Selassie was widely recognized as the true and rightful head of his country. His core beliefs regarding racial integration and a united Africa helped Ethiopia become a charter member of the United Nations as well as one of the few African nations to have a government supported by Western powers. In the Rastafarian movement, Emperor Selassie is viewed as God incarnate, or the Black Messiah, who it is believed will lead the people of African and the diaspora to freedom. While Emperor Selassie was Ethiopian Orthodox, he was famously tolerant of the Jamaican Rastafarians, if a bit bemused by them, and even donated a piece of land south of Addis Ababa to them. Deposed in a military coup in 1974, Emperor Selassie died in 1975. Though the official cause of death was complications from surgery, many believe that he was murdered. Printed caption and pencil number on verso.

A handsome about-fine signed photograph. Very scarce.