History lesson
The history of Rastafarianism is generally held to have started in 1933 when a L.P. Howell sold 5000 postcards with pictures of Haile Selassie on them, convincing unsuspecting buyers that the postcards were valid tickets to Ethiopia. After that it has not been possible for any government to stop the spreading of the news. The Rastas could read the Bible in ways that explained everything, always pointing to Ethiopia. But the mental ground had been prepared even earlier, by Marcus Mosiah Garvey, born Jamaican, naturalized American and one of the greatest black visionaries in the New World.
SOUND
Burning Spear: Slavery days. From the LP "Marcus Garvey", Island Records,
1975.
Produced by Jack Ruby, arranged by Winston Rodney (who is nowadays known
as Burning Spear himself).
This is Burning Spear in a more unpolished mode than his contemporary
audience may know him by; directly from the ghetto.