13/03/2025
: 1950–1969
Rastafari's main appeal was among Jamaica's lower classes.[357] For its first thirty years, Rastafari was in a conflictual relationship with the Jamaican authorities.[359] Jamaica's Rastas expressed contempt for many aspects of the island's society, viewing the government, police, bureaucracy, professional classes, and established churches as instruments of Babylon.[160] Relations between practitioners and the police were strained, with Rastas often being arrested for cannabis possession.[360] During the 1950s the movement grew rapidly in Jamaica and also spread to other Caribbean islands, the United States, and the United Kingdom.[357]
In the 1940s and 1950s, a more militant brand of Rastafari emerged.[361] The vanguard of this was the House of Youth Black Faith, a group largely based in West Kingston.[362] Backlash against the Rastas grew after a practitioner allegedly killed a woman in 1957.[160] In March 1958, the first Rastafarian Universal Convention was held in Back-o-Wall, Kingston.[363] Following the event, militant Rastas unsuccessfully tried to capture the city in the name of Haile Selassie.[364] Later that year they tried again in Spanish Town.[160] The increasing militancy of some Rastas resulted in growing alarm;[160] according to Cashmore, the Rastas became "folk devils" in Jamaican society.[365]
In 1959, the self-declared prophet and founder of the African Reform Church, Claudius Henry, sold thousands of tickets to Afro-Jamaicans, including many Rastas, for passage on a ship that he claimed would take them to Africa. The ship never arrived and Henry was charged with fraud. In 1960 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the government.[366] Henry's son was accused of being part of a paramilitary cell and executed, confirming public fears about Rasta violence.[367] One of the most prominent clashes between Rastas and law enforcement was the Coral Gardens incident of 1963, in which an initial skirmish between police and Rastas resulted in several deaths and led to a larger roundup of practitioners.[368] Clamping down on the Rasta movement, in 1964 the island's government implemented tougher laws surrounding cannabis use.[369]
At the invitation of its government, Haile Selassie visited Jamaica for the first time on 21 April 1966, with thousands of Rastas assembled to meet him at the airport.[370] Over the course of the 1960s, Jamaica's Rasta community underwent a process of routinisation,[371] with the late 1960s witnessing the launch of the first official Rastafarian newspaper, the Rastafarian Movement Association's Rasta Voice.[372] The decade also saw Rastafari develop in increasingly complex ways,[373] as it did when some Rastas began to reinterpret the idea that salvation required a physical return to Africa, instead interpreting salvation as coming through a process of mental decolonisation that embraced African approaches to life.[373]
Whereas its membership had previously derived predominantly from poorer sectors of society, in the 1960s Rastafari began attracting support from more privileged groups like students and professional musicians.[374] The foremost group emphasising this approach was the Twelve Tribes of Israel, whose members came to be known as "Uptown Rastas".[375] Many Rastas came under the influence of the Guyanese black nationalist academic Walter Rodney, who lectured to their community in 1968 before publishing his thoughts as the pamphlet Groundings.[376] Like Rodney, many Jamaican Rastas were influenced by the U.S.-based Black Power movement,[377] and after that movement declined, Rastafari filled the vacuum it left for many black youth.[378]
International spread and decline: 1970–present
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In the mid-1970s, reggae's international popularity exploded.[261] The most successful reggae artist, Bob Marley, played a major role in introducing Rastafari themes to audiences across the world.[379] Reggae's popularity led to a growth in "pseudo-Rastafarians", individuals who listened to reggae and wore Rasta clothing but did not share its belief system.[380] Many Rastas were angered by this, believing it commercialised their religion.[263]
Reggae musician Bob Marley did much to raise international awareness of the Rastafari movement in the 1970s.
Through reggae, Rasta musicians became increasingly important in Jamaica's political life during the 1970s.[381] To bolster his popularity with the electorate, Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley employed Rasta imagery and courted support from Marley and other reggae musicians.[382] Manley described Rastas as a "beautiful and remarkable people"[327] and carried a cane which he claimed was a gift from Haile Selassie.[383] Following Manley's example, Jamaican political parties increasingly employed Rasta language, symbols, and reggae references in their campaigns,[384] while Rasta symbols became increasingly mainstream in Jamaican society.[385] This helped to confer greater legitimacy on Rastafari,[386] with reggae and Rasta imagery being increasingly presented as a core part of Jamaica's cultural heritage for the growing tourist industry.[387] In the 1980s, a Rasta, Barbara Makeda Blake Hannah, became a senator in the Jamaican Parliament.[388]
Enthusiasm for Rastafari was likely dampened by the death of Haile Selassie in 1975 and that of Marley in 1981.[389] During the 1980s, the number of Rastas in Jamaica declined,[390] with Pentecostal and other Charismatic Christian groups proving more successful at attracting young recruits.[391] Several prominent Rastas converted to Christianity,[391] and two of those who did so—Judy Mowatt and Tommy Cowan—maintained that Marley had converted to Christianity, in the form of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, during his final days.[392] The significance of Rastafari messages in reggae also declined with the growing popularity of dancehall, a Jamaican musical genre that typically foregrounded lyrical themes of hyper-masculinity, violence, and sexual activity rather than religious symbolism.[393]
The mid-1990s saw a revival of Rastafari-focused reggae associated with musicians like Anthony B, Buju Banton, Luciano, Sizzla, and Capleton.[393] From the 1990s, Jamaica also witnessed the growth of organised political activity within the Rasta community, seen for instance through campaigns for the legalisation of cannabis and the creation of political parties like the Jamaican Alliance Movement and the Imperial Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated Political Party, none of which attained more than minimal electoral support.[394] In 1995, the Rastafari Centralization Organization was established in Jamaica as an attempt to organise the Rastafari community.[395]
![: 1950–1969Rastafari's main appeal was among Jamaica's lower classes.[357] For its first thirty years, Rastafari was ...](https://img4.medioq.com/076/001/122114567570760017.jpg)
