The Rastafari Tradition in Jamaica

Despite his antagonistic view of Selassie in the late 1930s, Garvey did a lot to lay the groundwork for the Rastafari tradition. He exhorted his followers not to see God as white and to worship him rather through what he called the spectacles of Ethiopia. Howl told his followers that they owed loyalty only to Selassie, not the British imperial power. The marriage of a political to a religious agenda was present from the start.