Arts and Entertainment
July 17, 2023
From: New York African Diaspora International Film Festival
The First Rasta
While Bob Marley is probably the best known Rastaman in the world, it is time to pay tribute to Leonard Percival Howell, The First Rasta. At the beginning of the last century, the young Leonard Percival Howell (1893- 1981) left Jamaica, became a sailor and traveled the world. On his way, he chanced upon all the ideas that stirred his time. From Bolshevism to New Thought, from Gandhi to Anarchism, from Garveyism to psychoanalysis, he sought to find his promised land. With this cocktail of ideas Leonard "Gong" Howell returned to Jamaica and founded Pinnacle, the first Rasta community.