Chapter 11: Crown Custodians

In the humid hills of Jamaica during the early 1930s, a quiet fire began to burn—a fire that would reshape how millions saw themselves, their ancestry, and their divine purpose. Out of the hardships of colonial oppression and the residue of slavery emerged a spiritual movement known as Rastafari, named after the Ethiopian emperor Ras Tafari Makonnen, who was crowned Haile Selassie I in 1930.

For many in the African diaspora, this coronation was not merely a political event but a prophecy fulfilled. Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican philosopher and Pan-African visionary, had long proclaimed, “Look to Africa, where a Black king shall be crowned.”

When that moment came, it was seen as the return of divine kingship to African people—a sign that redemption and liberation were near. The Rastafari movement, therefore, was born from a longing for freedom, a spiritual remembering, and a refusal to accept the lies of inferiority taught under colonial rule.

At its heart, Rastafari was both a spiritual awakening and a political defiance. It rejected the imposed values of “Babylon,” the metaphor for Western systems of greed, oppression, and deceit, and sought instead to live according to the laws of Jah—God manifest in human form, seen by many as Haile Selassie himself. The movement called for repatriation to Africa, the true homeland, and for the cultivation of 'livity'—a natural, balanced, and conscious way of life in harmony with the earth.

​

The Living Covenant: The Meaning of Hair

​

Among the most visible and sacred symbols of Rastafari are the locks—often called “dreadlocks,” (a fear of the crown)  but better understood as the covenant of the crown. Rastas trace this practice to the Nazarite vow in the Hebrew Bible:

“There shall no razor come upon his head… he shall be holy unto the Lord.” — Numbers 6:5

To let the hair grow untouched was a vow of purity, devotion, and separation from worldly corruption. But in the Rastafari context, it came to mean much more. Locks became the outward sign of inward liberation—the rejection of Babylon’s grooming standards, of Eurocentric ideas of beauty, and of any attempt to hide one’s African identity.

Each coil, each strand, is a declaration: I am natural. I am divine. I am as Jah made me. In this way, the hair becomes a spiritual antenna, a living connection between the body and the higher frequencies of consciousness. It is not vanity, but reverence. Not rebellion for its own sake, but remembrance.