Among the many powerful and world-shaping stories in the African diaspora, few have fused prophecy, kingship, resistance, and faith quite like the spiritual connection between Haile Selassie I, Marcus Garvey, and the birth of Rastafarianism.
Rooted in the Black struggle for identity, dignity, and liberation, this story stretches from the hills of Jamaica to the highlands of Ethiopia—linking ancient royal lineage to modern political resistance, and transforming how generations of Africans and their descendants see themselves and their Creator.
This is not just the tale of a man becoming king. It is the spiritual awakening of a people—a movement that redefined God, Africa, and destiny through Black eyes and Black voices.
I. The Prophecy: Marcus Garvey and the Call to “Look to Africa”
Marcus Garvey, born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, in 1887, was a revolutionary thinker who devoted his life to Black empowerment and African unification. As founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Garvey preached Black pride, economic self-sufficiency, and repatriation to Africa.
One of his most quoted and mystic statements is:
“Look to Africa, when a Black King shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near.”
Though there is no verified record of Garvey writing or publishing this phrase verbatim, the oral tradition in Jamaica immortalized it. When Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia in 1930, many interpreted this as the fulfillment of Garvey’s prophecy. The coronation was not a local affair—it was broadcast globally. News outlets like Time Magazine carried stories of this majestic moment: a Black monarch from an ancient Christian empire being crowned “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah.”
To Afro-Jamaicans, reeling from centuries of slavery, colonialism, and white supremacy, this was no ordinary event—it was divine affirmation. In the belly of Babylon, a spark had been lit.
II. Tafari Makonnen: From Noble Child to Emperor of an Ancient Empire
Born in 1892 in Ejersa Goro, Tafari was a child of noble birth, part of the Solomonic dynasty—a bloodline that traced itself to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, through their son, Menelik I. Ethiopia was one of the few African nations never fully colonized, and this unbroken royal lineage held immense symbolic power.
Tafari’s rise to power was marked by shrewd political alliances. After Lij Iyasu, the uncrowned heir to Emperor Menelik II, was deposed in 1916 for supposedly converting to Islam and for his erratic behavior, Tafari became Crown Prince and Regent under Empress Zewditu. Though she remained the ceremonial monarch, Tafari wielded actual political power and gradually overshadowed her reign. He championed modern reforms—education, diplomacy, technology—and positioned Ethiopia as a sovereign Black nation on the global stage.
On November 2, 1930, following Zewditu’s death, Tafari was crowned Haile Selassie I, meaning “Power of the Trinity.” His coronation ceremony fused ancient Ethiopian Christian tradition with international pomp, attended by dignitaries from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It was this moment that sealed his image in the minds of many Jamaicans—not just as a king, but as God incarnate.
III. The Birth of Rastafari: Faith, Resistance, and Redemption
The Rastafari movement emerged in the 1930s, primarily in the impoverished communities of Kingston, Jamaica. Rooted in Christian eschatology, Pan-Africanist thought, and Jamaican folk spirituality, it gave voice to the spiritual yearning and social frustration of Black people under colonial rule.
Rastas declared:
- Haile Selassie is Jah—the living God and Black Messiah.
- Zion is Ethiopia, the ancestral homeland.
- Babylon is the oppressive Western world—racist, capitalist, and spiritually corrupt.
- True liberation required “I-nity” (unity), rejection of Western norms, and return to African consciousness.
Rastafari was not simply religious; it was a revolutionary ideology, deeply suspicious of colonial Christianity, the British monarchy, and the Jamaican state. Instead of European saints, they revered African kings. Instead of bowing to foreign gods, they praised Jah Rastafari.
IV. Garvey’s Critique of Selassie: Prophecy Meets Politics
Though Marcus Garvey’s words helped birth Rastafari, he was critical of Haile Selassie, especially after the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia. When Mussolini’s fascist troops attacked, Selassie fled to Britain and appealed to the League of Nations.
Garvey viewed this exile as a betrayal. In his newspaper, The Black Man, he wrote:
“Selassie is a great coward… He ran away from his people and left them to be slaughtered.”
He also condemned the slow pace of slavery abolition in Ethiopia. Though Selassie promised to eradicate slavery as a condition for joining the League in 1923, full abolition wasn’t achieved until 1942.
This tension presents a paradox: Garvey, the prophet, disavowed the Messiah figure his prophecy was believed to predict. But for Rastas, Garvey’s words remained sacred—his doubts interpreted as part of a larger divine plan or dismissed altogether.
V. The Emperor Comes to Zion: Selassie’s 1966 Visit to Jamaica
On April 21, 1966, Haile Selassie made a historic visit to Jamaica. Over 100,000 Rastas converged on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston. The atmosphere was electric—dreadlocks waved like banners, Nyabinghi drums thundered, ganja smoke clouded the sky, and chants of “Jah Rastafari” rose like prayers.
When the Emperor’s plane landed, the crowd surged the tarmac. Selassie, overwhelmed, remained in the aircraft until Ras Mortimer Planno, a revered Rasta elder, was summoned to negotiate his safe exit.
That day became known as Grounation Day—a holy day in the Rastafari calendar. Selassie did not denounce their belief in his divinity. Instead, he gave gold medallions to Rasta elders, attended ceremonies, and held private meetings.
In one of these meetings, he reportedly told them:
“Do not come to Ethiopia yet. First, liberate the people of Jamaica.”
This became a Rastafari principle: “Liberation before repatriation.”
VI. The Gift of Shashamane: Ethiopia Opens Its Arms
In 1948, long before his Jamaican visit, Selassie had donated 500 acres of land in Shashamane, southern Ethiopia, to the Ethiopian World Federation—a group formed by African Americans and Caribbean supporters of Ethiopia during the Italian war.
This land became symbolic: a physical Zion, a place for Black repatriation. In the 1960s and 70s, Rasta families from Jamaica migrated to Shashamane. While their presence later caused friction with local Ethiopians—particularly the Oromo—the land remains a Rastafari settlement to this day.
VII. Bob Marley: Voice of Jah, Messenger to the World
No figure did more to globalize Rastafari than Bob Marley. Raised Christian but converted by Rita Marley after seeing Selassie in person, Bob fused reggae music with Rasta theology.
Songs like:
- “War” (based on Selassie’s 1963 speech to the UN),
- “Exodus”,
- “Iron Lion Zion”, and
- “One Drop”
…spread the message of Jah, Zion, and resistance to Babylon to every corner of the globe.
Marley’s dreadlocks, lyrics, and spiritual authority helped mainstream Rastafari and elevate Selassie’s image worldwide—even as Ethiopia remained mostly secular and Orthodox Christian.
VIII. Haile Selassie’s Own Words: Divinity and Denial
In 1967, during a CBC interview, Selassie was asked about the Rastas who believed he was God.
He replied:
“I have heard of that idea. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal.”
However, many Rastas do not interpret this as denial. To them, God’s humility is divine proof. As one elder put it: “Even Jesus never called himself God.”
Selassie himself sent Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq to the Caribbean to help Rastas transition into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. But the lines between faith, identity, and divinity had already blurred.
IX. Legacy: What Selassie and Garvey Mean Today
Though Selassie died in 1975 under mysterious circumstances—likely assassinated by the Marxist Derg regime—his spiritual legacy lives on. In 2000, his body was finally reinterred with imperial honors in Addis Ababa’s Holy Trinity Cathedral.
Today, Rastafari continues as a global spiritual movement, inspiring generations with its message of African pride, resistance to oppression, and spiritual awareness.
- Garvey remains the ideological father, the trumpet of return.
- Selassie is Jah incarnate, the mystical King of Kings.
- Rastafari is the child of both—born in fire, nourished in music, alive in spirit.
Final Thoughts: Crowned in Africa, Worshipped in the Caribbean
What began as a coronation in Addis Ababa became a spiritual revolution in Kingston. Marcus Garvey’s prophecy lit the match, Haile Selassie’s coronation was the flame, and Rastafari became the wildfire of consciousness.
Through suffering and song, ganja and gospel, the descendants of enslaved Africans reclaimed their royalty—not through Europe’s crowns but through Ethiopia’s eternal kingship.
Jah Rastafari. Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. King of Kings. Lord of Lords.
And still, He reigns—in the hearts of those who chant down Babylon and dream of Zion.