Bob Marley: One Love, a biopic celebrating the life, music, and politics of Jamaican Reggae singer Bob Marley, opened in theaters this month. It won’t spoil anything to learn that, in the movie’s opening scenes, we’re dropped into a violent moment in Jamaica’s history without much back story. The audience never gets a clear explanation of the civil war that threads through the movie, though it can be inferred that it has something to do with colonial legacies. And while snippets of Marley’s personal journey, from childhood to global superstar (a status that Marley, as played by Kingsley Ben-Adir, disavows), are revealed throughout the movie, knowledge of the Rastafari movement, Pan-Africanism, and Black Radicalism seems to be assumed by the movie-makers. (This isn’t a criticism; it does seem reasonable that if we can learn the words to Redemption Song, we can learn Jamaica’s history.)
Marley’s lived experience as a Rasta gets a good amount of screen time, but anyone not familiar with the religion might wonder why he kicks back with a book about Haile Selassie on the tour bus (there’s more to say here, but…spoilers). The connection between Marley’s music-philosophy and the political activism of Marcus Garvey is evident in the lyrics of Redemption Song and One Love; in the movie, Garvey’s influence gets a nod in another book-reading scene. Less clear is the bigger story: how Garvey came to be understood as a Rastafari prophet, how Selassie came to be viewed as God incarnate.
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If you’ve seen Bob Marley: One Love and want to learn more about Jamaica, Pan-Africanism, and the Rastafari movement, we’re here to help. Below, we’ve gathered a few stories to contextualize Marley’s politics, religion, and musical legacy.
Haile Selassie, Ethiopia, and the Rastafari Movement
Long before the concept of multicultural education emerged, the United Negro Improvement Association pushed for the teaching of Black history and culture.
Public intellectuals in Great Britain disagreed on what to do with Governor Eyre after his heavy-handed response to the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica.
There were British African Caribbean immigrants to the UK well before June 22, 1948, but it was the arrival of Empire Windrush that got the media's attention.
In the 1970s, Willie Brim, a member of the Buluwai people, learned about Peter Tosh and Bob Marley from hippies who lived near his community. And the joy began.
