The Howell’s 6 foundations of Rastafari: the heritage of a key actor of the movement
- Hatred for the White race
- The superiority of the Black race
- Revenge on Whites for their wickedness
- The negation, persecution and humiliation of the government and legal bodies of Jamaica
- Preparation to return to Africa
- Acknowledgment of Emperor Haile Selassie I as the Supreme Being and the only ruler of the Black people.
These basic principles, theorized by Howell, invite us to take an interest in an unrecognized, forgotten but fundamental character of the Rastafarian movement.
Leonard Percival Howell is not as popular as Marcus Garvey. However, he is a transitional character in the Rastafari movement, insofar as he is considered as the first Rasta. More precisely, he came the first Rastafarian preacher to found a Rasta community and to codify its way of life. His intentions are identical to Garvey’s ones. He fights against the black mental slavery. He renews the bonds with Africa and attests a divine descent. In this way, blacks can begin their moral reconstruction and escape from the interpretation of the Bible by the whites.
Howell was born in May Crawle River, Jamaica, in 1898. He enlisted in the colonial army during the First World War. He settled in New York in the 1920’s and soaked up the Garveyism movement and the Rastafarian ideology. When Haile Selassie was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930, Garvey’s prophecy (“Look to Africa, where a black king shall be crowned”) came true. From then on, Howell was convinced and became an ambassador of Jah.
At the beginning of the 1930’s, he returned to Kingston and covered Jamaica in order to preach the Rasta word. This period is thought to be the starting point of the Rastafari movement. He was a troublemaker, who challenged the power: he was imprisoned twice because of his speeches against the authority. In 1939, when he was released, more than ever, he seemed to be determined. Thus, the following year, he officially founded the Pinnacle community, which gathered about 1500 Rasta followers, poverty-stricken and persecuted by the police. The Pinnacle could be viewed as the Rasta’s Promised Land, clear of the Babylon system. In the Bible, Pinnacle is the summit of the Jerusalem temple. Here, the Pinnacle offered a new self-sufficient model of social organisation: members worked in community, for the community and there was no institution. Rules in the Pinnacle have constituted an important part of the Rastafarian culture: the vegetarian diet, the wearing of dreadlocks, the sacred use of marijuana, the meditation…
Nevertheless, the Pinnacle formed a threatening power for the Jamaican authorities, that is why they decided to stem its expansion. In a political and economical crisis context, and under the police pressure, the Pinnacle disappeared at the end of the 1950’s. Then, Howell was tracked and became more and more discreet. He deviated from the movement, let the new Rasta generation take over and died in the anonymity in Kingston, in 1981.
Even if the end of his life is mysterious, Howell has marked the birth of the movement and the first uniting of Rastafarians. He has durably influenced the Rasta culture and beliefs. Finally, he has paved the way for the diffusion of the Rastafari movement and its foundations: repatriation of blacks to Africa, superiority of blacks, rejection of authority, belief in the messiah Haile Selassie…
Antoine