Lion of Judah

Without giving away my exact age, let me just say that I have been wearing my Lion of Judah ring for over a decade now, since I was sixteen years old. I had seen the ring on the finger of different relatives before then, but it wasn't until I saw it on the finger of Bob Marley in a video where he was speaking of Ethiopia as his home and the only place he wanted to be that I called my mother and begged her to get me one. God bless her, I had the ring within a month. And ever since it has amazed me with the type of attention it gets. For example, just a few years ago, my aunt came to visit from Addis Ababa and we decided to take her to Las Vegas for a long weekend. While applying for a rewards card at the Mandalay Bay the older Caucasian man behind the desk saw the ring and told me about the time he had lunch with Emperor Haile Selassie, as a journalist back in the 1960's. He said it was an occasion he would never forget. Then another time walking down 125Th street in Harlem, NY a couple of older African-American gentlemen stopped me and asked if I knew what type of ring I was wearing. They told me that as very young men they remember people protesting the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in Harlem, and the many people requesting passports and visas to go to Ethiopia to fight or help in anyway they could. And people I meet from the Caribbean who see the ring always remember Haile Selassie visiting their country and the things he donated, especially the churches.

It always amazes me the affinity that some people in this country have for Ethiopia. You would have never known it growing up here in the 1980's.