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48 Race Formation and Black Identities who converted to Rastafari during the 1940s, believed that “Garvey, him really see him people start to take up and follow the Rasta people and from that him is very vexed.” Garvey became an acerbic critic of Haile Selassie I, which put him strongly at odds with the Rastafari and Blacks who held the Emperor in favorable regard. He admired the Emperor’s challenge to the invasion of the Italian fascists but lost respect for the Emperor after he turned to the colonizing nations for assistance. Selassie I delivered himself to his enemies, so Garvey believed (Garvey, 1937). Garvey lost support through his antiSelassie stand, which suggests that Black identification with Ethiopia and Ethiopianism was ultimately about more than an attraction to charismatic leaders. Paradoxically, Garvey was a prophet in the mind of Bedward, and has remained an icon to the Rastafari in spite of his disdain for them. The Text Augments the Word Oratory prowess has been central to Black intellectual traditions, at least partially because of the long period of time that so many Blacks lacked text literacy and access to textual information (e.g., Banks, 1999; Bogues, 2003). Of course, some Blacks mastered reading and writing on their own or with the assistance of Whites, but the building of a Black intellectual tradition based in printed media was slow to develop in Jamaica. By the 1920s, though, the printed word had become an important means of transmitting ideas on Blackness and Ethiopianism. The spread of printed material increased the circulation of ideas and increased the possibility for more people to learn about Blackness and grapple with the implications of oppression, miseducation, and deracination. The Holy Piby, The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy, and The Promise Key, three important Ethiopianist-oriented texts, influenced the early Rastafari. Robert Athlyi Rogers, an Anguillan, settled in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, founded the Afro-Athlyican Constructive Gaathlyans (a.k.a. the Hamatic Church). It was there that he wrote The Holy Piby (1924), which preached the “ . . . doctrine of the divinity of Ethiopia” (Scott, 1999:141). The development of a literature that spoke to Black experiences in terms of Ethiopianism exposed White suppression and distortion of Black history and culture: The Bible which the Bantu now have is the wrong book. There exists, they say, another Bible, hidden away from the Bantu by the Whites, a book Race Formation and Black Identities 49 containing the real truth, whilst the “old Bible”—as the Bible is called in such circles—was written only to cheat the Black man. One source of this propaganda seems to be the Afro-Athlican Constructive Church, of Negro origin . . . they know and possess “another” Bible, the right, Ethiopian Bible, called “The holy Piby.” According to them, the “old Bible” was given to the children of the house of Israel, whereas the Holy Piby has been given to children of the house of Ethiopia. (Sundkler, 1964:278) It is no coincidence that the “King of Kings,” the “Lion of Judah,” and “Zion,” construed in terms of Blackness, existed in the United States, Bantu South Africa, and Jamaica. The contributions of Blacks based in America were instrumental. For example, Rogers (who revered Garvey) founded a branch of his Ethiopianist-inspired church, the Afro-Athlyican Constructive Church in Kimberly, South Africa. Around 1924–25, Rogers met two Jamaicans in Colón, Panama—Charlie Goodrich and Mother Grace Garrison—who resettled in Jamaica and formed a branch of the Afro-Athlyican Church there. The church, however, was not well-received by Jamaican Garveyites, and they forced it to move from Kingston (Scott, 1999:142). The Holy Piby turned up in St. Thomas, where key founding Rastafari evangelist Leonard Howell would later preach his vision of Rastafari (Scott, 1999:142). Hill believes that Howell found The Holy Piby in Port Morant (142,143). Reverend Fitz Pettersburgh’s The Royal Parchment Scroll (ca. 1926) refers repeatedly to King Alpha and Queen Omega, and emphasizes the “resurrection” of Ethiopia. It is likely that Reverend Pettersburgh, an African American preacher, visited Jamaica. Leonard Howell, himself, authored The Promise Key (ca.1934), a document that was circulated in the meetings of the early Rastafari. Hill (2001) suggests that Howell plagiarized The Royal Parchment Scroll, which, from an academic perspective, might be true. However, the contemporary term “open source literature” perhaps better describes the attitude of Howell and his followers toward ideas. Other media contributed to the well of cultural resources drawn...

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