Race, Gender, and Pageantry: The Ups and Downs of an African American Woman in Imperial Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract From transatlantic trailblazer to wartime correspondent, from pageantry to widowhood at an early age, pan-Africanist Dorothy Hadley Bayen lived a fast and multilayered life that few of her contemporaries would have imagined. Yet Dorothy Bayen remains ignored in the historical records to the point of erasure. As Kathleen Sheldon and others have pointed out, the absence of women leaders in the history of Black internationalism is a sign of gender-biased scholarship and not a reflection of events on the ground. This article validates that observation. In rescuing Dorothy Bayen and her catalytic role in Ethiopian and African American relations from obscurity, it shows how emphasis on men-centered narratives might compromise, or even stultify, the emancipatory ethos of grassroots social movements.