Rastafarianism gained ground in Jamaica following the coronation of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1930. This spiritual movement is based on the belief in Selassie’s divinity.
Its followership grew under the influence of preachers like Leonard Howell, who is regarded as the founding father of the Rastafarian community.
Within two decades of its presence, the movement had earned global attention thanks to the music of devoted Rastafarian Bob Marley.
Although the deaths of Selassie in 1975 and Marley in 1981 took away its most influential figures, Rastafarianism endures through followings in the United States, England, Africa and the Caribbean.
Though he’s been dead for thirty-five years, the legendary reggae musician, Bob Marley, is easily the most recognizable Jamaican in the world.
The singer helped to build a global brand often associated with protest music, laid-back, “One Love” positivity, and a pot-smoking counterculture.
And since Marley was an adherent of Rastafari, the social and spiritual movement that began in this Caribbean island nation in the 1930s, his music—and reggae more generally—have in many ways come to be synonymous with Rastafari in the popular imagination.culture.
Rastafarians see themselves as the voice against oppressive colonialism. They aim to restore pride in African identity which suffered because of the forces of colonialism.
They proclaim Zion as the original birthplace of mankind and reject ‘Babylon’ or the world of materialism. The principles of Rastafarian lifestyle includes ritual use of marijuana, avoiding alcohol and wearing one’s hair in dreadlocks.
As of 2012, it was estimated that there were approximately 1 million Rastafarians throughout the world.
Its traditions continue in communities in the U.S., England, Africa, Asia and Jamaica, where the government has co-opted much of its symbolism through efforts to market tourism.
Attempting to make amends for past transgressions, the Jamaican government decriminalized marijuana in 2015, and in 2017 Prime Minister Andrew Holness formally apologized to Rastafarians for the Coral Gardens debacle.
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