Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I 1918 – 1967
Leonard Percival Howell
“Ras Tafari is the only Christ. You think is any Christ made you. Its your father and mother. You are God and every one of you is God. Any one who say that God is dropping down children is a liar.”
– Leonard Howell addressing a meeting in Port Morant on 30 May 1933, in Leonard Percival Howell and the Genesis of Rastafari, page 88.
One of Leonard Howell’s original followers in St. Thomas remembered that Howell “started to teach with the Bible and this same Black Supremacy book” (i.e. Pettersburgh’s Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy) “that Christ was back on the earth”, “with a new name, Ras Tafari”.
– Quoted in Robert Hill, Dread History, pages 31f.
“‘I told them of His crucifixion and of His ascension, and that, as Ethiopian sons and daughters, we would enjoy in the near future His Kingdom [since] the Messiah in the person of Ras Tafari came back in this world.
That his Kingdom shall have no end – a kingdom that all kings of the earth had to bow down to as he was the only king in the world to-day as an ancient king. […]
I told the people,’ Howell proceeded, ‘that the same God had come back on earth to lead mankind in the path of righteousness.’ […] Love and equality, he also told them, would reign on earth when their King started to reign. […]
He told them that their King was Ras Tafari, who was the ‘king of kings, lord of lords, elect of God, conquering lion of Judah and father of the world to come’.”
– Leonard Howell on trial for sedition in 1934, quoted in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 15 March 1934, page 20.
“He promised to come back the same way as He went away – Jerusalem was troubled. He referred them to the words of the ‘two men in white apparel,’ when He was ascending: ‘In like manner this Man you see now going up in the clouds will return back.’ He told the people that the return must be identical and must be along the lines of David’s descendants.”
– Leonard Howell on trial for sedition in 1934, quoted in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 15 March 1934, page 20.
“The glory that was Solomon greater still reigns in Ethiopia. We can see all the Kings of the earth surrendering their crowns to His Majesty Ras Tafari the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Earth’s Rightful Ruler to reign forever and ever.
Upon His Majesty Ras Tafari‘s head are many diadems and on His garments a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Oh come let us adore him for he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, The Conquering Lion of Judah, The Elect of God and the Light of the world.
His Majesty Ras Tafari is the head over all man for he is the Supreme God. His body is the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”
– Leonard Howell around 1935, The Promised Key, page 5.
“We all believe that Haile Selassie, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, shall in time take up his righteous reign for his people Israel, wherein all oppressors shall melt into the ocean of forgetfulness where they can be seen no more. We living members of the Ethiopian Society in the British Empire shall serve Haile Selassie to the end, and all well-thinking men and women, regardless of colour and creed, should do likewise.”
– Leonard Howell quoted in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 23 November 1940, page 26.
“Him [Leonard Howell] say Blackman arise and shine because the light has come. And the light is Jesus, the light of the world is Jesus and him come with the light … so the light a shine fi all a we ya, cause we Black. But him come fi Black and White you know, a no one nation God come for you know, him come for the world. To who receive Him.”
– Getrude Campbell, long time secretary of Leonard Howell until the end, quoted in Leonard Percival Howell and the Genesis of Rastafari, page 144.
𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬:
“I told them that […] we found out that all the powers of Europe and Asia went to the coronation and adored him: that he is the Son of God to govern all mankind, whereby his name shall be called ‘Lord of our righteousness.’
A man from the crowd asked: What sort of man is he?
I answered: He is a black man.
The man said: Jesus is a Jew. How you call Him black?
I said: We are the Jews, we are called Israelites, otherwise Ethiopians.
They (the people) said they had heard that Jesus Christ was a white man, and I told them to read Jeremiah chapter 8, verses 20 to 22. I said the verses from memory.
A person said he thought that Christ would come in the Spirit, and I said that I would prove it to them from my brain that Christ would come in the flesh.”
After he had also quoted chapter 4 of the Epistle of John, the people were satisfied that Christ would come in the flesh. Some said they had not known that before.
“I told them that if […] he came in the Spirit He could not wear a crown.”
– Robert Hinds recalling the speech that he gave at a meeting held together with Leonard Howell in Seaforth on 10 December 1933 for which both of them were tried and sentenced for sedition, as quoted from the trial by the Jamaica Daily Gleaner on 17 March 1934, page 6.
𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐡 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐇𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭:
Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert also taught that “Ras Tafari is the reincarnated body of Jesus Christ.” Therefore, “Today, Jesus Christ reincarnated back in the name of Ras Tafari. And John the Baptist came back in the name of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, another forerunner, mouthpiece and trumpeter.”
– Quoted in Derek Bishton, 2019: https://derekbishton.com/an-audience-with-joseph…/
Henry Archibald Dunkley
“In 1933 Dunkley opened his Mission, preaching Ras Tafari as the King of Kings, the Root of David, the Son of the living God, but not the Father Himself.”
– The 1960 University of the West Indies Report “The Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica”, page 10.
The picture shows Leonard Percival Howell, Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert and Henry Archibald Dunkley
Ras Boanerges / Bongo Watto
“Our divine education that the Rastaman teach in the world today is to bring the people to a clear knowledge to receive I Majesty Haile Selassie I as the Ireator of Ireation.
As the I said: ‘This glory must cover the earth as water covereth the sea. Whether you be white, whether you are brown, whether you are pink, my vision and my spirituality fall upon all ones and ones, and the whole multitude shall glorify I.’ So the righteousness of the Almighty goeth forth from one end of the earth to another, and all people, nations and tongues have to recognize this this day.
Because out of all the denominations, religions, christianity, there is not one that was here to tell the people say: ‘Live!’ Is only Rastaman come and say: ‘Live! I am a creator of the living and not a creator of the dead, for the dead praise not I, neither those that go down in silence.’
So the denominations and religions and christianity introduced to the people that they have to be dead before they can see God. Now the Rastaman come say: nothing like that! The Almighty say: ‘He that glorify lives. He that keepeth my commandments shall live for Iver and Iver. He that worship I shall live forIver. He that walk uprightly and do the things that is righteous they shall have life eternal’.”
– Ancient Ras Boanerges / Congo Watto, late 1980s/early 1990s.
The picture shows Ras Boanerges / Bongo Watto
Ras Sam Brown
“God came in many bodies, to reign forever in Rastafari (the triple-crowned monarch), the Holy One of Israel whose ray of light shall finally dim the eyes of the dragon (advocates of Christendom), and through whose power all those of many nations who embrace the faith and uphold it[s] laws shall live forevermore with God.”
– Ancient Ras Sam Brown, Treatise on the Rastafarian Movement, Caribbean Studies 1966, Vol. 6, 1: 39.
The picture shows Ras Sam Brown
Ancient Nyahbinghi High Priest Bongo Purro
“Within the kingdom of God all people throughout the entire earth have to come to one conclusion: that he is the Almighty God who rule earth and heaven, Rastafari.”
“I God is a God of love. For anyone cometh unto thee to testify, saying, I God is of the flesh, then that person is of God. Anyone cometh unto thee saying, I God is of the spirit, believe him not; it is a false prophet and a Antichrist. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word took unto himself flesh and become a living man, God in man. And God is love.”
“God came to set the captive free throughout the entire earth. And all who know he is the high Rastafari, then they too shall have access to the tree of life, regardless of what nation, what nationality, what tongue they may be.”
– Ancient Bongo Purro quoted in Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica, pages 112, 118, 172.
The picture shows Bongo Purro