Dread History:
The African Diaspora,
Ethiopianism, and Rastafari
Brother Edgar Reid, Howellite Rasta, Trediegar Park, St. Catherine, Jamaica
Brother Reid is one of a small group of Rastafari who were followers of Leonard P.Howell, the first person known to have preached the divinity of Emperor Haille Selassie. From 1940 to 1954, most of Howell's followers (about 1,200, or so) lived at Pinnacle, a rural Rasta commune in the parish of St. Catherine. At Pinnacle, Rastafari forged an African-oriented and independent way of life which served to symbolize both the Rasta separation from and sojourn in Babylon.
photograph by Susan Moss
