Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, October 3rd, 1935, Ethiopia, one of only two independent African nations at the time,

is invaded by fascist Italy, led by Benito Mussolini. Italy was a colonial force in the region as of course were the British

so this aggressive move by Mussolini was an early flashpoint in the

international reckoning with rising European fascism the League of of Nations got involved, the US and the

British had to decide if and how to respond, and this was also a huge flashpoint moment in the

black diaspora. Here was an independent black state being invaded by a European army.

Here in the United States black men and women volunteered to go to Ethiopia to fight

a people's march for Ethiopia in Harlem drew 25,000 African Americans and anti-fascist

Italian Americans. So this really fascinating swirl of international politics, the post-World

War I Coalition, the early World War II fault lines

emerging, and of course domestic race relations.

So let's talk about it all here, as always, Nicole Hammer Hammer or Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of

Wellesley hello there. Hello dirty. Hey there and our special guest this episode is

Isaac Davy Aronson he's the supervising producer to the Rachel Madow show at MSMBC and is also the co-host and executive

producer along with Rachel Madow of their excellent podcast, Deja News, a really brilliant history

show that did an episode on this moment and no surprise found

lots of interesting parallels to what exactly you do when an authoritarian leader tries to

annex new territory.

So Isaac, thanks for coming on. This is a treat for us to have you on.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. Great to be with you all. So, you know, as I said, so many

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