RT Article
T1 The Cultural Production of a Black Messiah: Ethiopianism and the Rastafari
JF Journal of Africana religions
VO 2
IS 3
SP 418
OP 433
A1 Price, Charles
LA English
YR 2014
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1812466005
AB Many of the Rastafari people claim that Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia is godly This article explains how the idea of a Black Messiah was culturally produced in the context of Ethiopianist ideology. [End Page 418] It sketches the various expressions of Ethiopianism and some of its leading exponents in the United States, Jamaica, and Central and South Africa in order to show why the notion of a Black and African Messiah made sense to a number of Jamaicans. Ethiopianists combined race, scripture, historical experience, religiosity, and social criticism in a way that made possible the formulation of a durable and compelling Black Messiah. The Ethiopianist formulations circulating through Kingston, Jamaica, during the 1920s provided the cultural resources for a new identification—Rastafari—as a way of being and being recognized in the world.
K1 Black identity
K1 Jamaica
K1 Emperor Haile Selassie I
K1 Ethiopianism
K1 Rastafari