Rastafari and Garveyism
In the twentieth century two movements have emerged out of Jamaica in protest of black physical and mental slavery by the white European establishment. The first to emerge was Garveyism, founded by Marcus Garvey after World War I. The second is Rastafari founded by Leonard Howell during the depression in the 1930s. Each movement founded by unknown figures and each committed to freeing blacks from social and political oppression. However, Rastafari contains a spiritual side from which all the major differences between the two arise. Although Garveyism had a profound impact on Rastafari, both movements are separate in their foundation, followers, and ideals.
The life of a Jamaican in the early twentieth century was not pleasant. Poverty stricken and continually controlled by a eurocentric world, Jamaicans were looking for a leader and a way out. Marcus Garvey was the first to provide such a plan with a rallying cry of "Africa for Africans at home and abroad." He enlightened audiences of Jamaican petite bourgeois and peasants by giving them hope for a new future where a united Africa would rises up as a formidable world power and a home for the people of Jamaica.
In Haile Selassie coronation as king of Ethiopia Garvey saw a "reign based on modernity, within the framework of Pan-African solidarity." Garvey urged blacks to go back to Africa in an effort to create a strong African state. Garvey valued the achievements of Western Civilization while rejecting the racial assumptions which came with the white world. He proved to be more interested in the social and political abilities of Africa and Ethiopia in particular by denouncing Haile Selassie for his ineptitude during the World War II in...
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...n larger movement which gave hope not only in the political and social aspects, but a new hope within the people of Jamaica and Africans everywhere. The spirituality of Rastafari sets it part from Garveyism in profound ways exemplified in the differing stances on Haile Selassie’s inauguration. For Garvey’s part in Rastafari, he is seen as a prophet; however, Garveyism never looked to change the hearts of the Jamaican people, only the minds.
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"Rastafarianism," Key Word: Rastafarianism, Web Page: Student Advantage Research, http://research.studentadvantage.com, 2000.
Lewis, Rupert, "Marcus Garvey and the Early Rastafarians: Continuity and Discontinuity," In Chanting Down Babylon, Eds. Murrell, Nathaniel, Spencer, William, and McFarlane, Adrian, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998, 146.
Ibid.
Lewis, 148.
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10. Yawney, Carole D. Moving with the dawtas of Rastafari: from myth to reality. pgs. 15--23; 33--55; and 65--73. (excerpts from Teresa Turner's New Society.)
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