Leonard “Gong” Howell aka “Dada”: My answer to the one who claimed “Leonard Howell was not a Rastafari”.
Rupert Lewis wrote a scholarly analysis on the Rastafarians which he entitled: Marcus Garvey and the Early Rastafarians: Continuity and Discontinuity.In it he made certain interesting points and inferences, which are notable for establishing a historically accurate documentary for the time period in question. I will include some of the more dynamic and poignant, which as the reader will see bears up many points made in the present work. I think the following from Lewis is poignant in understanding the viewpoints of Howell and Marcus Garvey; “The anticolonial content of Howell's preaching was clear in his message that black people's only true king was Emperor Haile Selassie. But Garvey did not approve of Howell's teaching and rejected his claims that Selassie was God”. Robert Hill in his book often quoted in this work wrote that; Garvey refused to allow Howell to sell the emperors picture in Edelweis Park, Jamaican headquarters of the UNIA. Lewis went on to state tha...