marcus garvey and the early rastafarians: continuity and discontinuity • by rupert lewis

Marcus Garvey and the Early Rastafarians

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Marcus Garvey and the EarlyRastafarians: Continuity andDiscontinuity

By RUPERT LEWIS

In Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, Editedby Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, andAdrian Anthony McFarlane (Temple University Press1998), pp. 145-158.

This chapter examines political aspects of the origins ofthe Rastafarian movement at a time when the Garveymovement was in decline in the 1930s. Its mainintentions are to underscore ways in which Garveyism hasaffected the evolution of Rastafari and to identify the manysimilarities and differences that exist between the twoanticolonial ideologies. Many interpretations of the originsof Rastafari have focused on two events during thisperiod: the coronation of Ras Tafari as emperor of Ethiopiain 1930 and Marcus Mosiah Garvey's writings on thesignificance of this coronation for people of Africandescent.

In his capacity as president general of the Universal NegroImprovement Association (UNIA), Garvey sent a cable toHis Majesty Ras Tafari that read "Greetings fromEthiopians of [the] Western World. May your reign bepeaceful, prosperous, progressive. Long live yourMajesty."(1) That communique was printed in the NewYork-based Negro World newspaper on November 8,1930. On that same day, Garvey published an article inhis Jamaican newspaper, The Blackman, that read:

Last Sunday, a great ceremony took place atAddis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia. Itwas the coronation of the new Emperor ofEthiopia -- Ras Tafari. From reports andexpectations, the scene was one of greatsplendor, and will long be remembered bythose who were present. Several of theleading nations of Europe sentrepresentatives to the coronation, therebypaying their respects to a rising Negro nationthat is destined to play a great part in thefuture history of the world. Abyssinia is theland of the blacks and we are glad to learnthat even though Europeans have beentrying to impress the Abyssinians that theyare not belonging to the Negro Race, theyhave learned the retort that they are, andthey are proud to be so.

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Ras Tafari has traveled to Europe andAmerica and is therefore no stranger toEuropean hypocrisy and methods; he,therefore, must be regarded as a kind of amodern Emperor, and from what weunderstand and know of him, he intends tointroduce modern methods and systems intohis country. Already he has started to recruitfrom different sections of the worldcompetent men in different branches ofscience to help to develop his country to theposition that she should occupy among theother nations of the world.

We do hope that Ras Tafari will live long tocarry out his wonderful intentions. Fromwhat we have heard and what we do know,he is ready and willing to extend the hand ofinvitation to any Negro who desires to settlein his kingdom. We know of many who aregone to Abyssinia and who have given goodreport of the great possibilities there, whichthey are striving to take advantage of.

The Psalmist prophesied that Princes wouldcome out of Egypt and Ethiopia wouldstretch forth her hands unto God. We haveno doubt that the time is now come. Ethiopiais now really stretching forth her hands. Thisgreat kingdom of the East has been hiddenfor many centuries, but gradually she isrising to take a leading place in the worldand it is for us of the Negro race to assist inevery way to hold up the hand of EmperorRas Tafari.(2)

I have quoted the full text of Garvey's article on thecoronation because often commentators refer only to thelast paragraph and stress the religious, propheticdimension, that of a prince coming out of Egypt andEthiopia stretching out its hands to God (Psalm 68:31), atthe expense of other aspects of Garvey's thinking.(3) ButGarvey addressed many issues: the attempts byEuropeans to separate Ethiopia from the rest of Africa,European attendance at the coronation and its impact, thecoronation as a symbol of black pride, and, mostimportant, Garvey's expression of hope for a reign basedon modernity within the framework of Pan-Africansolidarity. In Garvey's thinking and work, Ethiopianismfunctioned in accordance with his strong modernizing Pan-African outlook.

The emphasis placed on the coronation of Haile Selassie Iwas important in a colony where the British monarchy wasthe supreme symbol of power. In the UNIA, Garveyalways emphasized a counterhegemonic perspectiveagainst European domination and exploitation of Africa. Consistent with this approach, he had written andproduced a play, in June 1930, titled The Coronation of anAfrican King, which had scenes set in several African,European, and West Indian capitals. The play was also a



dramatic portrayal of the UNIA's work and the attempts bythe U.S. and European governments to stem the tide ofthe Garvey movement.(4)

Garvey founded the Universal Negro ImprovementAssociation in Jamaica in 1914. It took off in the UnitedStates in the period after World War I and became thelargest Pan-African movement of the early twentiethcentury. The Garvey movement saw its heyday in theearly 1920s, but by the late 1920s and early 1930s it wasalready in decline. Nonetheless, Garvey and the leadersof the UNIA represented early twentieth-century BlackNationalist leadership that mobilized the masses around aprogram of cultural, economic, and political modernity. They advocated an end to colonialism in Africa and theCaribbean and envisioned the eventual development ofthe African continent into a modern network of nations thatwould constitute a United States of Africa. The models forthis network of nations were the United States of Americaand western Europe. In this respect, the Garveyites werean "African Westernizing elite." As African descendants,they claimed the heritage of early African civilization, butthey also valued the achievements of the world that hadenslaved and colonized them (the so-called Babylon),while rejecting its racial assumptions and notions of theirsubordinate position within that world.

Continuities

That Rastafari and Garveyism share many similarities iswell known among their adherents, as well as amongscholars who do research on these movements. Bothmovements are Afrocentric and unapologetically defendthe beauty and dignity of Africa and people of Africanancestry. While Garvey emphasized Africa's social andpolitical redemption, Rastas include in that agenda aspiritual dimension, which they often clothe in Judeo-Christian thought and African concepts. Both Garveyismand Rastafari show great respect for the Bible and attemptto distance themselves from biased, Eurocentricinterpretations of Scripture that contribute to theoppression of black people. Ken Post, whose work onRastafari is well known, has stressed the importance ofthe Bible in Jamaican culture and Rastafari, pointing outthat "the religious factor which Jamaicans of all classeshad in common was the King James Version of the HolyBible. For the majority of members of the lower and manyof the intermediate classes, the contents of this bookrepresented the essential truth. People were accustomedto search the Bible for answers to their problems."(5)

His love for and frequent citations of passages from theBible notwithstanding, Garvey was less interested in givinga theological or religious interpretation to his Afrocentricpolitical ideology than the Rastafarians have shownthemselves to be. Garvey and the Rastafarians, however,both read the Bible with the knowledge that Africa andAfricans had been a part of that recorded experience andwisdom; it is not a book that is alien to black people. Themost well known Marcus Garvey scholar in the UnitedStates, Robert Hill, has argued that the Holy Piby and the



Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy are the twobooks that provide "the actual interpretative basis ofRastafari ideology."(6) These were introduced intoJamaica between 1925 and 1927.(7) Along with the Bibleand the oral traditions, they are among a variety ofsources that have helped to shape Rastafarian beliefs. Other scholars have examined the history of Rastafari inthis context, explored its origins(8) in the peasantry, andalso emphasized the impact of traditional Afro-Jamaicanreligions, such as revivalism and Kumina,(9) on theevolution of Rastafari. Maureen Warner-Lewis, anauthority on Caribbean culture, has pointed to the widerange of African continuities in the Rastafarian beliefsystem.(10)

Historically, Garveyism and Rastafari were both started bya person who was unknown and rather insignificant, atfirst, and both movements were later exported fromJamaica to other countries under the harsh economic andpolitical conditions of the early twentieth century. Whereas Garveyism first surfaced in Jamaica during WorldWar I, Rastafari came out of the depression years of the1930s, which gave birth to the 1938 labor rebellion. As inGarveyism, the Jamaican roots of Rastafari are to befound in the varied cultural, economic, and politicalstruggles of the Jamaican people in the post emancipationyears after 1838. Both movements are committed to anideology of nationalism that supports political andeconomic independence for Blacks. That is, they bothdemonstrate a strong anticolonial stance and showinterest in national independence, although they have verydifferent interpretations of what a black independent nationshould be.

Both movements gained their popularity abroad beforethey were accepted at home by the Jamaican middleclass, from whom they received much hostility. Garveyismgot its early support in Harlem before it was endorsed inJamaica in the 1920s. Leonard Howell, who is regardedas one of the founders of the Rastafarian movement, firstgained a following in the rural parish of St. Thomas andlater, in the parish of St. Catherine, set up a communecalled Pinnacle, which was constantly under pressure fromthe authorities in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1954 thecommune was broken up by the police.(11) ThusRastafari's acceptance in Jamaica, especially among themiddle class, came only after the university study of 1961,Prime Minister Michael Manley's political interest in andsympathy toward the Rastas, and the reggae explosion ofthe 1970s. Both Garvey and Howell were, over thecourse of their careers, arrested and imprisoned oncharges of conspiracy, the former in the United States andthe latter in Jamaica. Yet, despite the hostile attitudes ofthe Jamaican society to Garveyism and Rastafari, the1930s ushered in a period of transition betweencolonialism and the rise of Jamaican nationalism -- due inno small measure to the struggles of both the Rastafariansand the Garveyites.

Rastafarian intellectuals construct a lineage going back



beyond the plantation to Ethiopia, and many Rastafarianelders emphasize individual spiritual vision to account forthe origins of their conversion.(12) Many versions of the1930s emergence of Rastafari are proffered other thanthose that have become standard in scholarly works. However, certain basic facts remain undisputed. Thatseveral of Garvey's followers were involved in the foundingof Rastafari is common knowledge. Leonard Howell, forexample, traveled paths similar to Garvey and was aknown Garveyite and Africanist. Coming from a poor ruralbackground, Howell joined the thousands of Jamaicanswho migrated to Panama and then to the United States,where he worked with the United States Army as a cookand was said to have had a business in New York. Garvey did not work with the army but made Harlem, NewYork, his headquarters. Hill notes that Howell's return toJamaica "coincided with the period of marked upsurge inreligious revivalism that began during 1930-31."(13) TheGleaner of December 1933 alleged that at Howell'smeetings, "devilish attacks are made ... on government,both local and imperial, and the whole conduct of themeeting would tend to provoke an insurrection if takenseriously."(14)

Discontinuities

Although the Garveyite secular-religious interpretation ofthe coronation of Ras Tafari and the Rastafarian religiousview of that event both originated from a similar Africa-centered tradition, they are not identical. Garvey saw inSelassie an African head of state and someone who couldbe a major player in the Pan-African Black Nationalistmovement; but the Rastafarian interpretation of theemperor recognized divinity. To the Rastafarian way ofthinking, no contradiction exists between the secular andthe religious elements in Garvey's thinking, nor in hisemphases regarding the emperor's coronation. Theyinterpret the whole of Garvey's thoughts from a theocraticpoint of view. In contrast, Garvey privileged a secularapproach, with a preference for modernity over theocracy. So when Garvey later criticized Emperor Haile Selassie forhis conduct in Ethiopia's war with Italy, he saw theemperor as a ruler, not as God. Rastafarians, by contrast,saw God in the emperor; Haile Selassie is God, King ofKings and Lord of Lords. The coronation thereforeinspired the emergence of the Rastafarian movement inways that Garvey never envisioned. Rastas fused ancientHebrew prophecy, so common in Garvey's speeches, withAfricanist ideas(15) and gave rise to the most influentialcultural and spiritual current to have emerged in theCaribbean in this century.(16)

The differences between the Garveyites and theRastafarians involve not only Garvey's ideological stancebut also the social character of the movement he led andthe religious outlook of the early Rastafarians. The earlyRastas were drawn predominantly from the AfricanJamaican underclass, and the religious character andcultural and social practices of early Rastafari arecharacteristic of the Jamaican peasantry.(17) The style,



organizational structures, and practices of the Garveymovement had the stamp of the emergent black petitebourgeoisie or middle class. At the same time, theJamaican government had supporters drawn from thepeasantry but did not attract many followers from theUNIA.(18) In the UNIA, one felt the energy of a group ofBlacks repressed by colonialism and American racism butdetermined to resist and take its place in the worldthrough conventional means, rather than by way of aradical break with Western culture, as advocated byRastafari. Around the black middle-class thinking andleadership, the black masses coalesced.

The anticolonial content of Howell's preaching was clear inhis message that black people's only true king wasEmperor Haile Selassie.(19) But Garvey did not approveof Howell's teaching and rejected his claims that Selassiewas God. As Hill reports, Garvey refused to allow Howell"to sell the Emperor's pictures in Edelweiss Park, the[Jamaican] headquarters of the UNIA."(20) Garvey foundmany of Howell's doctrines embarrassing to his ownChristian thought, especially on the issues of God and theMessiah. There is little evidence that Garvey readHowell's Promised Key, but if he had, he would havefound this early Rastafari prophet's interpretation of Biblecharacters and the Christian church (especially the RomanCatholic Church) highly offensive; Garvey's respect for theBible is unquestioned.

Another Garveyite associated with the early Rastafariansis Robert Hinds, a follower of Alexander Bedward who wasamong those arrested on Bedward's 1921 march againstoppression and his call for spiritual reform. Chevannescalls Hinds "the most successful of all early Rastafari, interms of membership.... Hinds led an organization of overeight hundred members on roll, and turnout at functions ofa couple hundred." Hinds's headquarters was called theKing of Kings Mission, and "it was organized along thelines of a Revival group."(21) Again, the connectionbetween Bedwardism, revivalism, and early Rastafari ispatently clear. Also, like both Bedward and Garvey, Hindshad the ability to attract a large following.

The 1935 Italian war against Ethiopia gave Rastafari oneof its most important impulses. Not only were Rastafariansand Garveyites protesting publicly in Kingston, but thewider black community was also opposed to Italy'saggression. The Garvey-oriented newspaper Plain Talkreported that "a group of Jamaicans had decided to launcha series of meetings throughout the Island, for the purposeof getting together a battalion of stalwart men to defendthe Ethiopian frontier from the Italian invaders," and thatthe contingent would be assisted by a black organizationin Chicago.(22) Amy Jacques Garvey, wife of MarcusGarvey, delivered the main address at a mass meeting insupport of Ethiopia at the Kingston Liberty Hall on October13, 1935. She concluded that the war would result in the"rising up of the people of Africa in one great effort toemancipate themselves."(23) At this rally, "a petition



signed by no fewer than 1400 persons was drafted askingthe British Government to allow Jamaicans to enlist in theEthiopian army so as 'to fight to preserve the glories of ourancient and beloved Empire'."(24) This petition was sentto the British colonial secretary, who represented thecustodian of Jamaica's national and international defense. However, the British government did not accede to thesuggestions of the Jamaica Garveyites; in fact, one Britishofficial "wrote contemptuously of the 'bellicose sons ofHam in Jamaica, so anxious to serve two masters'."(25)

The Rastafarians showed their opposition to the Italians indifferent ways. Several Rasta groups demonstrated inKingston, while others voiced their defiance through avariety of approaches. According to Randolph Williams,"There were sections that wanted to send a petition to HisMajesty the King of England praying that they be allowedto recruit men in Jamaica to be sent to Abyssinia to doservice in the Ethiopian ranks, others wished to collectmoney to send to Ras Tafari to be used for the purchaseof arms, some decided upon just praying three times perday for the triumph of Abyssinia."(26) In Montego Bay, onthe western end of the island, about two thousand personsdemonstrated against Italian aggression. Similar proteststook place in Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad, St. Kitts, andother West Indian territories.

The Garveyite newspaper Plain Talk was commended byDr. Malaku Bayen,(27) Haile Selassie's personalrepresentative in the United States, who was in charge oforganizing the Ethiopian World Federation. EarlyRastafarian leaders Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert, ArchibaldDunkley, and many other Rastas were foundationmembers of the first local branch of the Ethiopian WorldFederation to be set up in Jamaica. But Garvey himselfwas very hostile in his criticism of Haile Selassie. As earlyas October 1935, Garvey had argued that the Italo-Ethiopian war "affords only another example of whatunpreparedness means to a people." Less than two yearslater he stated the following in his main critique of theemperor:

He kept his country unprepared for moderncivilization, whose policy was strictlyaggressive. He resorted sentimentally toprayer and to feasting and fasting, notconsistent with the policy that secures theexistence of present-day freedom for peoplewhilst other nations and rulers are buildingup armaments of the most destructive kindas the only means of securing peace ... andprotection.... The results show that God hadnothing to do with the campaign of Italy inAbyssinia, for on the one side we had thePope of the Catholic Church blessing theCrusade, and the other, the Coptic Churchfasting and praying with confidence ofvictory.... It is logical therefore that God didnot take sides, but left the matter to besettled by the strongest human battalion.(28)



At the very beginning of the Rastafarian movement,Garvey challenged Leonard Howell's claim that Selassiewas divine. Garvey respected the emperor only for theimportant role he saw him playing in African politics at thetime; but he criticized Selassie openly for his politicalineptitude and his defense of his Semitic ancestry at theexpense of his African heritage. Not surprisingly, Garvey'sattitude toward Haile Selassie was bitterly criticized by hisopponents, as well as by some of his supporters, incorrespondence and articles to Plain Talk.(29) Some ofthe opposition to Garvey derived from the view that theemperor was a descendant of King Solomon and thereforeuntouchable. The power of the Hebrew Bible record wasoften invoked in the interpretation of the Emperor's ancientlineage. Others felt that Garvey's criticisms were simplyunfair.(30) No doubt exists that Garvey lost supportamong his followers as a result of his criticisms. However,his work and his reputation after his death caused him tobecome a prophet to Rastafarians and a national hero inJamaican society.(31)

Although the Garveyites and the early Rastafarians wereminority groups in Jamaica in the 1930s, they were at theforefront of the challenge to Jamaica's colonial mentality. Rastafari therefore represents an important dimension ofpopular resistance to British colonialism, the plantationsystem, as well as the authority of British-oriented mulattoand black middle-class values. However, to frame theoppositionist posture of Rastafari in relation to the moreprivileged classes is to see it conveniently in a one-sidedway, when, in fact, it has challenged the values not only ofthe privileged but also of the underprivileged who acceptcolonial values. The Rastafarian's "chanting downBabylon" is, therefore, directed at all segments of theJamaican society that cradle and foster the beliefs thatsustain black subordination.

Garveyism and Rastafari are the results of distinct socialmovements that overlap on certain ideas and personalitiesand differ in other respects. For example, whileGarveyites shared a similar perspective on Africa to that ofthe Rastafarians, they differed over Selassie's divinity. ForGarvey, Selassie was a secular figure, not a religious one,and absolutely not God. Garveyism was broader thanRastafari in social appeal and included a strong elementof middle-class Blacks of that era, though it also attracteda strong working-class and rural following. By contrast,Rastafari was definitely rooted in the lower socioeconomicclasses. It was a movement among the Jamaican poor,unmediated. The infusion of the middle class intoRastafari came with Black Power in the 1960s. In thisregard, the theme of nationhood articulated by Garvey andother nationalists came into conflict with the theme ofrepatriation that was strongly held by Rastafarians.

The imperative of repatriation among Rastafariansreflected trends all over the Americas, as witnessed inboth the mythic and the physical return of Brazilian andCuban Blacks to West Africa in the late nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries,(32) as well as in the



repatriationist efforts in the United States during the sameperiod. This trend was also strong in Garvey's successfulefforts in establishing UNIA branches in Lesotho, Ghana,Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Namibia, and SouthAfrica.(33) In 1961 the government of Jamaica appointeda mission to Africa that included Garveyites such as Z.Munroe Scarlett and Rastafarians Mortimo Planno, D.Mack, and Filmore Alvaranga. Their report helped toshape the policy of the Jamaican government in setting updiplomatic relations with independent African states, inproviding solidarity in the struggle against colonial rule,and in securing land in Ethiopia, where a Jamaicansettlement still exists.

The religious character of Rastafari is partly due to theway Jamaican people have identified with andappropriated the Hebrew Scriptures and have seenthemselves as the Israelites. The oppression of theMiddle Passage, slavery, and the brutal postemancipationtreatment of the peasantry, when linked to Africa-centeredtraditions of racial consciousness, led some Jamaicans toidentify themselves strongly with the suffering ancientIsraelites. While sharing in this religious perspective anddrawing on it, Garvey was more secular in his program,policy positions, and outlook than that theological tradition. Garveyism was a program of political, economic, social,and cultural modernity. While incorporating basicfundamental Christian principles, it had to admit to morethan one belief system because the Pan-Africanmovement that the UNIA represented had believers drawnfrom different religious and spiritual persuasions. Amongthe Garveyites were adherents of the many varieties ofAfrican Caribbean and African American Christianreligions, as well as of orthodox Christian religions and ofIslam. Garvey himself was brought up as a Methodist andhad some association with Catholicism. During hisheyday, Garvey was a Christian,(34) albeit anondenominational one, who advocated the perception ofGod in our own image. This contrasts sharply with theRastafarian belief in the divinity of Haile Selassie.

Another important difference between Garvey andRastafarians lies in their views on ganja, which is usedritually and socially by Rastafarians.(35) An editorial titled"The Dangerous Weed" that appeared in Garvey's NewJamaican on August 13, 1932, leaves the reader in nodoubt as to where he stood on this matter:

Ganja is a dangerous weed. It has beenpronounced so by responsible authorities. The smoking of it does a great deal of harmor injury to the smoker; we understand it hasthe same effect on the subject as opiumhas. Every day we hear of cases of ganjasellers being brought before the Court --fines, small and heavy, have been inflictedwith the object of destroying the trade, butyet it grows. The other day a man wasfound in possession of ninety pounds ofganja, this was enough deadly weed to



destroy a thousand men. That our peopleare being destroyed by the use of ganjathere is absolutely no doubt. We have comein contact with young men and middle agedmen who have become a menace to societythrough the smoking of ganja. Sometimesthey perform in such a crazy manner as tofrighten us. Aren't we playing with thedanger by not more severely putting itdown?

Most of the people who smoke ganja do soas a means of getting themselves in such astate or condition as to forget their troublesand worries -- troubles and worries broughtupon them by the bad conditions that exist inthe country.... It would be good that moreserious steps be taken to suppress this ganjahabit.... Between ganja and fanaticalreligion, we are developing a large populationof half-crazy people who may not only injurethemselves but injure us. Some will do it inthe name of the "Lord" and others may do itunder the influence of the evil weed.(36)

This position brought Garvey into conflict with those whoadvocated and practiced the ritual, sacramental use ofganja, as well as with those who traded in it. (Jamaica hadseveral herbalists who sold many herbs for variousmaladies and not as drug dealers.) But while Garveyisminspired the prophetic and Ethiopianist vision of theRastafarians, who hail Garvey as a great hero and prophetof Rastafari, the Jamaican Pan-Africanist stood in strongopposition to the Rastas' fundamental beliefs andpractices. He saw their rituals and livity as un-Christianand degrading to the true African personality.

Another significant difference between the Rastafari andthe Garvey movement is that the latter wasinstitutionalized and centralized through the UNIA, whilethe Rastafarian movement is not an institutionalized andcentralized establishment. Attempts by Rastafarians tocentralize the movement have proven dismal failures,although no doubt efforts will continue to be made in thatdirection. There is no central leadership or hierarchy thatmakes decisions for the movement, and the variousgroups exercise a tremendous measure of independence. Perhaps their only uniting principle is the belief in Selassieand Ethiopianism.

On the one hand, Garvey does have the status of aprophet in the Rastafarian worldview, and in some ways,Garveyism has influenced the Rastafarian ideology. Indeed, Garveyism is said to be one of the ideologicalfoundations of the Rastafari religion,(37) a result of thecross-pollination that occurred between the Garveymovement and those who have been identified by scholarsas the founders of Rastafari. On the other hand, Rastafariwas not a product of the Garvey movement. The spreadof Garveyism corresponds with black militancy after WorldWar I -- as seen, for example, in the labor movements



among the Oil Fields Workers Trades Union, led by UriahBuzz Butler and Captain Author Cipriani of Trinidad andTobago -- and depended on the success of Garvey inorganizing and channeling that radicalism in Jamaica andparts of the United States. The spread of Rastafarioutside of Jamaica in the late twentieth century has adifferent vehicle -- that of reggae music and the dreadlocksimages associated with Bob Marley.

Given Jamaica's class, color, and race structure, someGarveyites from the middle class held Rastafarians incontempt, and certainly did not subscribe to any notion ofthe divinity of Haile Selassie. Garvey further differentiatedhimself from Bedwardism(38) and revivalism. Bedwardismtook the name of its founder, Alexander Bedward (1859-1930), a revival preacher who had been a migrant inPanama and whose headquarters were in August Town(near the Mona sugar estate). The crucial years forBedwardism were the 1890s to the 1920s, and its primarysupporters were the poor underclass. The Garveymovement, by contrast, was multiclass in its socialcomposition and drew from the black petite bourgeoisie orthe emergent middle class: teachers, journalists, smallbusinesspeople, black industrial workers in the UnitedStates, and sugar plantation and banana workers in Cubaand the Caribbean, most of whom were peasants. Eachof these groups brought to the Garvey movement theirview of the world, their distinct interests, and their commonexperiences of racial oppression.

As with any nationalist movement having a cross-classcomposition, conflict was inevitable in the Garveymovement and emerged when the early Rastafariansobjected to Garvey's criticism of Emperor Haile Selassie'sstyle of leadership in the war with Italy in the 1930s. Buteven earlier, Garvey had been critical of revivalistpractices, Obeah (not in modern Rastafari), and thesmoking of ganja. An editorial in the New Jamaican,commenting on a woman who died after "catching thespirit" in the spirit possession of revivalism," clearlyrepresented Garvey's views: "There is good and there isbad in religion. Some religions are foolish, and we have alot of them in Jamaica. We have religion here, that isrunning the people crazy.... In different sections of ourcity, and for that matter, on the island, scheming andwicked persons are promoting all kinds of fanaticalreligions, and they are finding fertile fields among theunfortunate and ignorant people."(39)

These elements, as Chevannes and others have pointedout, were all present in early Rastafari. That was adifferent phase of the movement, and as such, it isnecessary to distinguish among the Howellites, the oldsupporters of Bedwardites, the revivalists who becameRasta and initiated a campaign to recognize Haile Selassieas God, and the latter-day Rastafarian movement thatgained international currency with the music of BobMarley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer. Garvey knew theHowellites, the Bedwardites, and the anticolonial milieu,and with these Jamaicans he dialogued. It is the latter-day Rastafarians, however, who, through reggae, have



canonized Garvey and become the most active force inJamaica for perpetuating aspects of Garvey's philosophy. Burning Spear was one of the earliest and still is the mostpersistent of the "Garveyite" reggae-Rasta lyricists.

The Garvey and Rastafarian movements were, of course,not the only trends that were involved in the anticolonialstruggle. Rastafari emerged in a decade of intense socialstruggle in which the middle classes came to the forefrontof nationalist anticolonial politics, stirred into action by thelabor movement. The social context in which Rastafariemerged was a trying one. In the world of British colonialJamaica in the 1930s, the racist attitudes of the whitelandowning and merchant class, the colorist behavior(40)

of the brown people, and the hankering of blackJamaicans after a lighter skin color formed a dominantethos that was not only Britain-centered but alsomonarchyoriented. Values such as admiration of andloyalty to the plantation owners and the British king orqueen were strong even among black peasants, momentsof resistance notwithstanding.

The Jamaican political elite continued to favor the Britishmonarch being recognized -- albeit indirectly -- as thehead of state in the new Jamaican Constitution. Inplanning constitutional reform in the 1950s both majorpolitical parties, the People's National Party and theJamaica Labour Party, agreed to replace the queen ofEngland with a Jamaican president. However, substantialdisagreement remained between the two parties as towhether the final court of appeal should continue to be theBritish Privy Council. The People's National Party favoreddispensing with the British Privy Council and establishinga Caribbean court of appeal. The Jamaica Labour Partyfavored continuing with the British Privy Council, becauseit felt that local political interference would affect the dueprocess of law in a Caribbean court. This legal recognitionof, and contention over, the British monarchy is aconsequence of the extended period of acceptance of thelegitimacy of the British sovereign that has been a centralpart of Jamaica's colonial political culture. In theiradvocacy of Ethiopian monarchism over against Britishmonarchism, Jamaican Rastafari challenged the colonialmentality in the national British conception of monarchy,but they were quite at home with the political conceptionand ideas justifying the Ethiopian monarchy in Africa. Garvey criticized both monarchies and their support inJamaica.

British cultural institutions transplanted to Jamaica stillmake up part of Jamaica's way of life and contribute to theshaping of regional and national norms in the anglophoneCaribbean. A good case in point is the English game ofcricket, which not only has been mastered but has beenmodified in style and substance by the English-speakingCaribbean. The West Indies cricket team dominated worldcricket from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Jamaican middle-class culture was situated at the axisformed by this British cultural-political legacy and its rootsin the postemancipation peasantry and working class. The



social and economic trajectory of the middle classes fornearly 160 years has, at best, been characterized byconsiderable ambivalence toward Africa, on the one hand,and cultural certainty about Britain and Europe, on theother. I have corrected many undergraduate essays, atthe University of the West Indies, in which studentsautomatically refer to Britain as "the mother country." Rastafari needs to be seen in the context of these socialand racial struggles over a Jamaican identity that is heir toboth British and African cultures. Rastafari is thereforethe continuation of efforts toward black self-determinationon the collective as well as the individual level, and in thisrespect, it parallels the efforts of the Garvey movement. Self-determination, in this context, is not restricted topolitical nationalism but extends to what Rastafarians havecalled "livity," which covers the totality of one's being inthe world.

Garveyites and Rastafarians were active in the anticolonialand labor struggles, but the outcomes of those struggleswere determined by other players: the British government;the landed oligarchy, who had been shaken by the eventsbut not defeated; and the political brokers drawn from themiddle classes. Political leadership drawn from the blackand brown middle, classes negotiated independence fromBritain during the 1960s and, in their nation-buildingefforts, took some elements of Garvey's program butrejected much of his black assertiveness and pride. Theysubstituted other notions with which the light-skinnedupper classes and the British would be comfortable, and towhich the majority of the black population acquiesced. One example of the negation of Garveyism is frequentlyreferred to in the Jamaican press; some people claim thatthe color black in the colorful Jamaican flag, whichsupposedly represents the dominant race in the country,instead symbolizes hardship. This stereotypes blackJamaicans who would like the flag to represent morepositive aspects of their reality, aspirations, and dreams asa nation. Jamaican scholars such as Rex Nettleford andPhillip Sherlock have been campaigning for a change inthis symbolism, which Nettleford links to the recognition ofEmancipation Day as a national holiday. (It is sorecognized in such Caribbean countries as Trinidad andTobago.) Hence, in a letter to the press, Nettleford wrote,"The people in Jamaica House [office of the PrimeMinister] need, however, to act -- take the 'hardship' out ofthe black in the flag (see my Mirror, Mirror of 1970) andrestore Emancipation Day allowing Independence Day(August 6) to fall where it will!"(41)

Some of the sharpest critiques of the neocolonialconceptions of the nation have come from old Garveyactivists and Rastafarians who had articulated variedconceptions of Jamaica as a black nation and of itsrelationship to Africa. The brown and black middle class,who benefited considerably from the transition toindependence-given the expansion of education and theopening up of the civil service as well as of the executiveand legislative areas of government -- tended to turn itsback on Garvey or used his ideas as a means of socialcontrol. In this context, from the 1940s to 1960s,



Garveyism tended to be equated with Rastafari, since theRastafarians embraced Garvey as their prophet. In thethinking of the Rastafarians, after Garvey's death in 1940,he assumed mythic proportions, second only to EmperorHaile Selassie. Barry Chevannes has identified fourthemes in his Rastafarian informants' understanding ofGarvey: Africa for the Africans, black unity, self-reliance,and racial pride. He has also exposed the myths thathave developed about Garvey, which he groups into thecategories "Garvey as divine," "Garvey as John theBaptist," and "Garvey as prophet." These understandingsstand in sharp contrast to what are referred to as"Garvey's curses": financial disaster with the purchase ofthe worthless Black Star Line and his poor managementskills as a leader and financial planner.(42)

Pressures from the rest of society against Rastafari, in theyears leading up and subsequent to politicalindependence, have created closer bonds betweenRastafari and Garveyism while not eroding differences inoutlook among their followers. Moreover, while Rastafarias a movement has grown and spread internationally, noGarvey movement exists, in an organic sense,(43) at theend of the twentieth century. But Garvey's ideas andviews remain important and are a point of reference at thepopular level as well as in Jamaican state and localpolitics, due to his status as one of Jamaica's nationalheroes. An appropriate question to raise is: What will bethe future of Rastafari? Might it suffer the fate ofGarveyism, maintaining a legacy without a movement? Might it become organized into a political force that wouldcause it to lose its cultural dynamics and forget its rootsand ethos? Perhaps its decentralized and less organized(than Garveyism) nature will prove to be Rastafari's ownsalvation.

Notes

1. Cited in Robert Hill, ed., Marcus Garvey and theUniversal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 7:November 1927 - August 1940 (Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 1990), 442.

2. Ibid., 440-41.

3. The quotation from Psalm 68:31 -- "Princes shall comeout of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her handsunto God" (KJV) -- was used by Garvey in developing hisPan-African message. See Robert Hill, "Leonard P.Howell and Millenarian Visions in Early Rastafari," JamaicaJournal 16, 1 (1983): 24-39.

4. For a review of The Coronation of an African King, seeThe Blackman, June 21, 1930, 3. See also BeverleyHamilton, "Marcus Garvey: Cultural Activist," JamaicaJournal 20, 3 (1987): 21-30, for discussion of Garvey'scultural activities in Jamaica.

5. K.W.J. Post, Arise Ye Starvelings: The JamaicanLabour Rebellion of 1938 and Its Aftermath (The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff, 1978), 160.



6. According to Robert Hill, the Holy Piby was written andpublished by Robert Athlyi Rogers in 1924, in Newark,New Jersey. The Royal Parchment Scroll of BlackSupremacy was published by the Reverend Fitz BalintinePettersburgh. See Hill, "Leonard P. Howell," 27.

7. Leonard Howell is said to have plagiarized the HolyPiby in his 1935 text titled The Promised Key. SeeChapter 21 on The Promised Key in this book.

8. Rastafarian writer E.S.P. McPherson argues thatRastafari had pre-Columbian roots in that Ethiopianpeople came here before the Spaniards. He does notprovide any evidence other than the oral tradition ofcertain Rastafarian elders. See E.S.P. McPherson,Rastafari and Politics -- Sixty Years of a DevelopingCultural Ideology: A Sociology of Development Perspective(Kingston: Black International Iyahbinghi Press Production,1991), 22.

9. On Kumina, see an interesting article by Kenneth Bilbyand Elliott Leib, "Kumina, the Howellite Church and theEmergence of Rastafarian Traditional Music in Jamaica,"Jamaica Journal 19, 3 (1986): 22-28.

10. Maureen Warner-Lewis, "African Continuities in theRastafari Belief System," Caribbean Quarterly 39, 3-4(1993): 108-23. Garvey, of course, would have had lessrespect than most Rastas for revivalism and Kumina.

11. Joseph Owens, Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica(Kingston: Sangster's Book Stores, 1976), 18-19.

12. Barbara Makeda Lee, Rastafari: The New Creation(London: Jamaica Media Productions, 1982), 14-15.

13. In the 1920s, Garveyites in New York describedHowell "as being a 'con-man' but also 'a samfie [Obeah]man'" (Hill, "Leonard P. Howell," 30).

14. Cited in Horace Campbell, Rasta and Resistance:From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney (London: HansibPublishing, 1985), 71.

15. For an insightful discussion of the Rastafarian use ofthe Old Testament, see Dennis Forsythe, Rastafari: Forthe Healing of the Nation (Kingston: Zaika Publications,1983); and Post, Arise Ye Starvelings.

16. On the worldwide spread of Rastafari, see NeilSavishinsky, "Transnational Popular Culture and theGlobal Spread of the Jamaican Rastafarian Movement,"New West Indian Guide 68, 3-4 (1994): 259-81. See alsoChapter 7 by Savishinsky in this anthology.

17. Barry Chevannes, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1994); idem,"Introducing the Native Religions of Jamaica," in BarryChevannes, ed., Rastafari and Other African-CaribbeanWorldviews (The Hague: Macmillan Publishers/Institute ofSocial Studies, 1995).

18. The Rastafarian movement developed an urban



character with the drift to Kingston in the 1940s-1950s,and only during the 1960s did it gain significant numbersof adherents among the middle class.

19. For more information on Howell and his role inRastafari, see William David Spencer's commentary onThe Promised Key in Chapter 21, below.

20. Hill, "Leonard P. Howell," 32.

21. Chevannes, Rastafari, 127.

22. Editorial, Plain Talk, July 20, 1935.

23. Editorial, Plain Talk, October 26, 1935.

24. Robert Weisboard, "British West Indian Reaction tothe Italian-Ethiopian War: An Episode in Pan-Africanism,"Caribbean Studies 10, 1 (1970): 35-36.

25. Ibid.

26. Jamaica Standard, January 14, 1939, 24.

27. Plain Talk, August 7, 1937, 7.

28. Cited in Rupert Lewis, Marcus Garvey: Anti-ColonialChampion (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1992), 172.

29. Robert E. Hood, Must God Remain Greek? AfroCultures and God-Talk (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,1990), 91. See Plain Talk, April 10, 1937, 7; May 1, 1937,10. See also Hill, ed., Marcus Garvey, 7:698-703, forcorrespondence between Garvey and Una Brown of NewYork City over Garvey's criticisms of Selassie.

30. Una Brown wrote, "I feel like a lot of others that youhave been quite unfair in your writing" (in Hill, ed., MarcusGarvey, 7:699).

31. Virtually all the scholarly and popular literature onRastafari accords Garvey this status. See Jabulani I.Tafari, "The Rastafari: Successors of Marcus Garvey," inRex Nettleford, ed., Caribbean Quarterly Monograph:Rastafari (Kingston: Carribean Quarterly, University of theWest Indies, 1985), 1-12, for a statement on Rastafari assuccessors of Marcus Garvey.

32. Rodolfo Sarracino, Los que volvieron a Africa(Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1988).

33. Hill, ed., Marcus Garvey, 7:997-1000.

34. See Philip Potter, "The Religious Thought of MarcusGarvey," in Rupert Lewis and Patrick Bryan, eds., Garvey:His Work and Impact (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press,1991), 145-163.

35. Scholars are divided on whether ganja was broughton the plantations by indentured Indian laborers or byenslaved Africans (see Bilby and Leib, "Kumina," 23). SeeNeil Savishinsky's "African Dimensions of the JamaicanRastafarian Movement," Chapter 7 in this book, for details.



36. Marcus Garvey, Editorial, "The Dangerous Weed,"New Jamaican, 13 August 1932.

37. Chevannes, Rastafari, 87.

38. See Chevannes, Rastafari, 39, 126-27, 78-80, for theimpact of Bedward on early Rastafari. For the politicalimpact of Bedwardism, see Lewis, Marcus Garvey.

39. Marcus Garvey, "The Death of a Fanatic," NewJamaican, 11 August 1932, 2; The editorial is very criticalof "bad religion."

40. Jamaican novelist Erna Brodber used the termcolorist behavior in her 199 5 emancipationcommemoration lecture "Emancipation --The Lesson andthe Legacy: . . . As We Forgive Those Who Trespassagainst Us . . ." (lecture presented at the Bethel BaptistChurch, Kingston, Jamaica, on Sunday, July 30, 1995;Kingston Emancipation Commemoration Committee).

41. See Rex Nettleford, "Letter to the Editor," DailyObserver, August 5, 1995, 8.

42. Chevannes, Rastafari, 87-99, 100-110.

43. By "organic sense" I mean that a social movementhas to be an expression of a particular moment and has togrow and change in ways corresponding to the interestsand agendas of its members. Research on theRastafarian movement shows an organic change. However, there is no comparable evidence among thosewho call themselves Garveyites.

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