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RASTAFARI: THE DAWN

During the Marcus Garvey era (1914-1940), other important events took place in the black man's world. Garvey had taught his followers about the history of Ethiopia, Alexandria, Zimbabwe, Monomotapa, Timbuktu, Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and other great African empires of culture. He told his congregation to look to Ethiopia and the king. Subsequently the U.N.I.A.'s national anthem was, to quote a few lines:

Ethiopia, the land of our fathers;
The land where all gods love to be.
As swift bees to hive suddenly gathers;
So thy children come rushing to thee.
With red, yellow, and green floating 'oer us,
And our emperor to shield us from wrong.
With our God and our future before us;
We hail thee with shouts and with songs!

Thus the Honorable Marcus Garvey set the stage to herald in the era of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Haile Selassie I, conquering lion of the tribe of Judah. The general populace of Jamaica had felt a void with the departure and demise of the Honorable Marcus Garvey. During the 1930s, social and political strife was brewing. Saint William Grant was on the docks, organizing the lavor force to unite and fight against starvation wages with no benefits.

The sugar factories were now run by giant companies (conglomerates) such as Tate and Lyle, and the West India Sugar Company. Sugar, rum, and molasses were at their heights, but very little benefits went to the workers. The banks of Jamaica, as most commercial companies, did not hire dark skinned people in any important position; only menial jobs were available. The United Fruit Company controlled the growing and exportation of bananas.

Although most of the black population was not making a decent living, a few slipped through the racial barriers and became prominently known. Such included barrister Ethelred Erasmus Adolphus Campbell and the young legal wiz, barrister Norman Washington Manley. Dr. L. Moodie, Dr. Ivan LLoyd, and your Dr. Peter Bragg were among the few who excelled against the odds.

Disturbances were on the rise on the sugar estates all over the island. The brothers Frank and Ken Hill, along with Alexander Bustamante and Saint William Grant organized the workers into unions. At this junction of Jamaica's history, Bustamante was a member of the People's National Party (P.N.P.); and both Norman Manley and Bustamante were members of the Trade Union Council. Thus, Jamaica, for the very first time, was politically united. This was the panorama that existed during the turbulent 1930s and early 1940s in which the people of Jamaica were struggling to exist and to find their true identity.

During this period, significant historic events were also taking place in Ethiopia, on which the entire world would soon focus. In 1916, Rastafari Makonnen, the governor of the Ethiopian province of Harrar, was proclaimed as Prince Regent and heir apparent of Ethiopia. It was reported that the Prince Regent Rastafari Makonnen met with Dr. Nambi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Jomo "Burning Spear" Kenyatta of Kenya, Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, and other African patriots to form the secret order of Nyabinghi. The Nyabinghi order drafted plans for the total liberation of the African continent from European domination, by any means necessary.

In 1928, Prince Regent Rastafari Makonnen was crowned as Negus (King) of Ethiopia. Then on November 2, 1930, Negus Rastafari Makonnen was crowned in Addis Ababa (the new flower), before a world audience which included England's Prince of Wales and other European royalties. He was crowned by his holiness Abuna Basilios - Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church, as His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I, Negus Negusti (king of kings), Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Lebena Denghel (incense of the virgin), Keeper of the Faith of the Dynasty of Judah, Keeper of the Faith of the Dynasty of David, and The Elect of God. Emperor Haile Selassie was given the Golden Orb and the Golden Sceptre. Thus the coronation of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, signaled prophetically and historically, the birth of the Rastafarian movement.

In 1935, the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussilini, ordered Italian forces under the command of Marshall Badolio, to invade Ethiopia. The troops were blessed by the Roman Catholic Pontiff before departing from Italy on their ill-fated adventure.

The invasion of Ethiopia by Italy, twice in a span of forty years (1896 and 1935), was the catalyst which focused "Garveyites" (followers of Marcus Garvey) and other black people on Ethiopia and His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I. The culmination of events occurring in Ethiopia during the 1930s and the military developments in Europe (World War 2), were the catalysts which created the spawn for the Rastafarian dawn.