Bring in All Rastas, Dead or Alive!
2025
Bring in All Rastas, Dead or Alive! preserves firsthand Rastafari history in Jamaica, photographed between 2023 and 2025. The project focuses on Rastas of the Nyabinghi Order, one of the oldest and most influential branches of Rastafari in Jamaica. Through portraiture and recorded audio testimonies in Jamaican patois, it gathers accounts shaped by one central question: how have perceptions of Rastafari changed over time in Jamaica?
The work is rooted in a history that remains underrepresented, including the violence of the 1963 Coral Gardens incident and the state crackdown that followed, when Rastafari were targeted, detained, and forcibly cut their dreadlocks. The title draws from Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante's directive issued during the crackdown: "Bring in all Rastas, dead or alive!"
Together, the photographs and testimonies preserve memory and lived experience, showing how this history continues to shape Rastafari life today. The project centers faith, discipline, and endurance, while foregrounding voices that speak to both historical persecution and the ongoing reality of Rastafari in Jamaica.
“Marijuana was used as an avenue to harass and brutalize Rastafari. For example, if the police knew the Nyahbinghi was taking place here for Rastas to assemble and engage in worship, they would have roadblocks because they know Rastas are coming and always have marijuana on them. We knew it was highly discriminatory, used to uphold colonialism and the suppression of the activities of our people towards liberation. It was terrible, and some things were unbelievable. As I remember, the police approached the Nyahbinghi, tied Rasta dreadlocks to their jeep, and pulled them on the road. Vicious things.” - Verald “Ras Iyah V.” Vassell, Chairman of the Rastafari Nyahbinghi Administrative Council
“The Prime Minister came down and said “Lock them up, bring them in, dead or alive! What the jail cannot hold, the cemetery will hold”. They battered us. Some bled all over. Then they hosed us down. It was one of the most disgraceful experiences I ever had. Some of my bredrens were elderly and didn't live long afterward.” - Wesley "Ras Peaky" Brown, 1963 Coral Gardens Incident Survivor
“The current state of Rastafari is a little better. The police are not forcing us to cut our locs, which was one of the main issues in my days. And there was no employment for us, perhaps as garbage collectors. We had no choice but to pick up farming. We are the original farmers and still feed the nation. They (the government) can’t stop or fight us. They are trying to heed us, but I don’t see the freedom we should have.” - Orlando “Ras Walters” Walters, Farmer & Plant Vendor
“Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters discriminated against us. Nobody liked us or our Rastafari way of life. They considered us worthless. It’s like we were cursed and, as a result, experienced many rejections. The police/state brutalization us, and we had to be happy with it versus going to jail and being sentenced for ganja. It was total disrespect and discrimination; we had no trade, no work, and not even taxis would pick us up. We had to create opportunities to survive.” - David “Ras IGIE” Elliott, Holistic Healer & Rastafari Artisan
“Black people's hair is despised, and this concept is still a stigma. The situation is much better, but it needs to go away. And it can if the government sets up the right policies so Rasta’s with dreadlocks can go to work without issues. Jamaica is where the religion Rastafari originated and is growing worldwide. So, in Jamaica, it should be recognized. The music is also worldwide. It’s not just the love and peace we are spreading. The government needs to understand that they should be doing more for the Rastafari community.” - Lewis “Ras Brown” Brown, Treasurer of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolence Society
“Students going to school are questioned about their dreadlocks, and some principals turn them away. If they wear a Rasta cap, principals want to know what is under it. If they do not wear a Rasta cap, the principals are offended by their Afrocentric look. I’m the secretary of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society, and every academic year, Parents request us to write letters because some schools demand letters from a Rastafarian organization that indicates that the students are Rastafarian. No other religion or race is treated in this manner in Jamaica. If a Chinese student has long hair, there is no problem with it, but the dreadlock is what the schools have an issue with.” - Pamela “Sistah Nanny” Rowe-Williams, Secretary of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society
“Rastafari, in its early inception, people thought of all kinds of things based on their upbringing because the state marginalized us: no jobs, no tenancy, Rastafari children couldn’t go to school, and dreadlocks deemed as filthy. Having interacted over time with Prime Ministers and agitated for our rights, we have a united body now that can dialogue with the government for rights and justice. Respectability towards Rastafari is now better. At least the younger generation enjoys more privileges as Rastafari than the elders. The battle is still ongoing, and many items need to be sorted out. But regarding the Rasta position, it's up to us to get our act together, put some more economic ventures in place to balance the spiritual with the material, and advance as a people.” - Donavan “Ras IVI Tafari” Wright, Rastafari Advocate, Ambassador and High Priest
“The stigma and barricades are still there. However, there is a better conception now as people are climatized and know the laws. During my time, you couldn’t go to school if you had dreadlocks. We had to lobby for our rights to equal education for Rastafarian children to be allowed in schools. Now, Rastafarian students attend universities.” - Joseph “Ras Bongo Roach” Roach, Herbalist
“As soon as we would make a mistake, the teacher would treat us differently. We would hear the name “one room child,” “Ganga smoking parents,” and some things that hurt. Children would call us names such as “centipede in your head, lice in your dreadlocks. And even though the system told us we should wear the Rasta hat, the children would pull it off looking for lice and centipedes. It caused us to fight in anger and distracted us from focusing on learning, which the institution was supposed to allow us. It's disturbing." - Joel “Ras Binghi Pele” Dyke, 3rd Generation Rastafarian
“We should not let the system drag us down and tear us apart because that is their plan. To use, refuse, and confuse us. To have us in a divided situation so that they can rule us. Divide and rule is their only plan. What affects one affects all. So, if we want to escape it, we must unite. And then I think we will better see how to move on. And set more examples for the younger generation because this generation does not know how to be humble and learn like us. If we are not there to teach them, they will get hurt by the system because they do not have the faith that we have to persist within the tribulation. Most get rebellious, but sometimes, the guidance presses them on with more confidence. So we must ensure we are living to be an example to them, and they will see that they have some foundation they can follow. I think that will keep the future generation grounded.” - Pearline “Mama Fyah” Wolfe, 2nd Generation Rastafarian (Apr. 30th 1954 - Feb. 18th, 2025)
Backstory:
The Rastafari movement took shape in Jamaica after the coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia on November 2, 1930. Influenced by Marcus Garvey’s call to look to Africa for redemption, early followers believed Selassie’s rise fulfilled prophecy and signaled liberation.
By the 1950s, Rastafarians became recognizable for dreadlocks and the red, gold, and green of the Ethiopian flag, and adopted the Lion of Judah as a symbol of lineage and African identity. Leonard Percival Howell, a former member of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, emerged as one of the earliest preachers. Beginning in the 1930s, Howell and fellow pioneers, including Robert Hinds, Joseph Hibbert, and Archibald Dunkley, preached Selassie’s divinity and rejected allegiance to the British crown. Authorities treated these messages as sedition, arrested the leaders, and confined several to mental institutions.
State pressure intensified over the following decades. Police and soldiers attacked Rasta communes, destroyed homes, and arrested followers, often using marijuana laws as pretext despite its sacramental role. Much of Jamaican society viewed Rastafarians as pariahs.Newspapers described them as criminals, lazy, and unclean. Shut out of employment and formal institutions, many turned to farming as a means of survival.
One such farmer, Benjamin “Rudolph” Franklyn, worked land on the Rose Hall estate in Montego Bay. After repeated disputes and raids on his land, witnesses reported that a confrontation with police left him shot and badly injured. He was later arrested, imprisoned, and denied adequate medical care as his health deteriorated. Believing he had been wronged, he reportedly vowed revenge.
On April 11, 1963, Franklyn and five other men allegedly attacked and burned a gas station in the Coral Gardens area of the Rose Hall estate. Three civilians, including property manager Edward Fowler, were killed. Three Rastafarians and two police officers also died before authorities regained control. Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante then issued the directive:“Bring in all Rastas, dead or alive.” Police, soldiers, and civilians formed search parties across western Jamaica. Men with dreadlocks or beards faced arrest, beatings, and forced hair-cutting, and in some cases death.
By the end of Good Friday, April 12, authorities had detained more than 150 Rastafarians in raids across St. James, Hanover, Trelawny, and Westmoreland. The Rastafari community remembers Holy Thursday and Good Friday as “Bad Friday.” The episode is also referred to as the Coral Gardens incident or the Coral Gardens massacre.
In 2015, the Office of the Public Defender released a major investigative report documenting the causes and aftermath and called for a formal apology and redress for victims. In April 2017, Prime Minister Andrew Holness delivered an official apology in Parliament and announced measures including a trust fund for victims and families, efforts to identify surviving witnesses, and the designation of land for a future Rastafari heritage and cultural center.