“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

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 of the movement believed Selassie’s rise fulfilled the prophecy of a Black king who would deliver his people.

By the 1950s, followers of the movement, known as Rastafarians or Rastas, became recognizable for their dreadlocks, inspired in part by the Mau Mau fighters who resisted British colonial rule in Kenya. They embraced the red, gold, and green of the Ethiopian flag and adopted the Lion of Judah as a symbol of imperial lineage and African identity.

Leonard Percival Howell, a former member of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, emerged as one of the first preachers of Rastafari. Beginning in the 1930s, Howell and fellow pioneers, including Robert Hinds, Joseph Hibbert, and Archibald Dunkley, delivered fiery sermons proclaiming Haile Selassie’s divinity and rejecting allegiance to the British crown. Authorities treated these messages as sedition, arrested the leaders, and confined several of them to mental institutions.

State pressure intensified over the following decades. Police and soldiers attacked Rasta communes, destroyed homes, and arrested followers, often for cultivating or possessing marijuana, which Rastafarians used as a sacrament. Despite the harassment, the movement spread organically across the island. Much of Jamaican society viewed Rastafarians as pariahs. Newspapers described them as criminals, lazy, and unclean. Rastas avoided public spaces and transportation to protect themselves from violence and humiliation. Shut out of employment and formal institutions, many turned to farming as the only reliable means of survival.

One such farmer, Benjamin “Rudolph” Franklyn, worked land on the Rose Hall estate in Montego Bay, reportedly inherited from his father. In October 1961, police clashed with him over smoke from burning wood used to make coal. Edward Fowler, the property manager, led efforts to push Franklyn farther from the estate. Police raided his land repeatedly, uprooting crops and destroying fields. During a third confrontation, Corporal Williams accused Franklyn of possessing marijuana. Witness accounts say Williams shot Franklyn after claiming the farmer advanced with a machete.

Authorities left Franklyn wounded for hours before being taken to the hospital, where doctors expected him to survive only a short time. After his release, police arrested him again, charging him with assault and cultivating marijuana. He served nine months in prison, where he lacked adequate medical care, and his health deteriorated. Believing he had been wronged, he reportedly vowed revenge.

On the morning of 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 Fowler, died. Three Rastafarians and two police officers were also killed before authorities regained control by midday. Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante flew to Montego Bay and declared that the situation did not warrant alarm. He then issued a stark 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, 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 the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday as “Bad Friday.” Historians also refer to the episode 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 of the attacks. The report called on the Jamaican government to issue a formal apology and offer redress to innocent Rastafarians who suffered during the crackdown.

Fifty-four years after the massacre, in April 2017, Prime Minister Andrew Holness delivered an official apology in Parliament. He acknowledged that Coral Gardens “stands out as an example of the use of violence by the state against its citizens”. He recognized that Rastafarians transformed their struggles into “sound, images, icons and a way of life” that helped bring Jamaica global recognition and pride. Holness also committed the government to several actions, including establishing a trust fund for victims and their families, identifying surviving witnesses in consultation with the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society, and designating six plots of land as a protected site for a future Rastafari heritage and cultural center.