Leonard Howell

Leonard Percival Howell was a Jamaican religious leader who founded Pinnacle, an early Rastafari community, and helped establish Rastafari as a movement in the 1930s.

Marcus Garvey: A Jamaican political activist whose black nationalist ideas influenced anticolonial movements and Rastafari. Howell’s teachings drew on Garvey’s call for Black pride and African liberation.
Rastafari: A Jamaican religious and cultural movement centered on African identity, liberation, and the divinity of Haile Selassie. Howell’s preaching helped form this movement in its earliest years.
Rastafari in the 1930s: The early formation of Rastafari in Jamaica following Haile Selassie’s coronation in 1930. Howell’s preaching was part of the movement’s initial formation during this decade.
Pinnacle raid: The 1954 police operation that dismantled Leonard Howell’s Rastafari settlement in Jamaica. The raid ended Pinnacle as a functioning community and marked a major rupture in Howell’s work.
Haile Selassie: Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, revered by Rastafari as a messianic figure. Howell proclaimed Selassie’s divinity after his 1930 coronation.
Pinnacle: A Rastafari community founded by Leonard Howell in Jamaica’s hills during the 1940s. Howell made Pinnacle a base for communal living, worship, and self-sufficiency.
Ethiopianism: A religious and political tradition that treats Ethiopia as a symbol of African sovereignty and redemption. Ethiopianist ideas supplied a framework for Howell’s emphasis on Africa and Selassie.
Rastafari persecution in Jamaica: The harassment and state repression faced by Rastafari communities in Jamaica, especially in the movement’s early decades. Howell and Pinnacle became targets of official suspicion and coercion.
Joseph Hibbert: A Jamaican preacher associated with the earliest Rastafari preaching in the 1930s. Hibbert was among the early preachers whose work overlapped with Howell’s.
Nyabinghi: A Rastafari tradition of communal reasoning, drumming, chanting, and prayer. Gatherings and religious practice helped turn Howell’s teachings into collective life.

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