Police and Rastas clash in the 1963 Coral Gardens incidents

FROM THE very beginning, in the late 1930s, Rastafarianism was opposed by mainstream society – the government and the Church. It was a folk religion started by Leonard Percival Howell, a former Garveyite whose philosophies and teachings were appealing to many grassroots people, and so the movement proliferated all over the country, giving rise to Rasta settlements/camps.

As the movement grew, so did the opposition and negative attitudes towards it. There was much persecution in the form of beatings, destruction of settlements, imprisonments, etc. All over the country, Rastas were vilified, scorned, mocked, and were regular targets for the authorities. Leonard Howell himself felt the full force of it, with his stronghold of Pinnacle being raided several times, and with his imprisonment, twice. He was also sent to a lunatics’ asylum.

Things came to a head on the Easter weekend of 1963 in Coral Gardens, St James, but whatever happened on those ‘holy’ days was germinated two years before when a Rastaman named Benjamin ‘Rudolph’ Franklyn was shot three/six times.

Coral Gardens was part of a larger property, the Rose Hall Estate. This property was the site of small-scale farming by Rastafarians. The government and landlords saw the Rastafarians as an obstacle to their goal of repurposing the property for tourism, and frequently sent police to evict the Rastafarians.

They visited Franklyn more than once. On the last visit, in October 1961, the police shot Franklyn six times (some sources say three) in the stomach and left him for dead. Franklyn received surgery to repair his stomach but was told by a doctor that, once the plastic “rotted”, his wounds would reopen and he would die.

Following his surgery, Franklyn was immediately arrested, on the grounds of ganja possession, and was eventually sentenced to six months in prison. After his release, it is said he had sworn to extract revenge against overseer Edward Fowler.

There are different accounts as to what instigated the incident on Thursday, April 11, 1963, but when the police heard that the gas station was on fire, a party, led by Inspector John and carrying unloaded rifles, went to the location where they saw some Rastas wielding spears, hatchets, machetes. The police told them to drop their arms. They complied but, when they realised the police’s rifles were not loaded, they attacked the police and a melee ensued.

When the dust was settled, three Rastafarians, three civilians, and two policemen were dead, The Daily Gleaner of Saturday, April 14 says. The dead included Assistant Superintendent Bertie Scott; Detective Corporal Clifford Melbourne; witness and travelling salesman Kenneth Marsh, who was chased to his motel where he was killed; Edward Fowler, the headman at Rose Hall Estate; assistant in-bond shop manager Albert Causewell; Benjamin ‘Rudolph’ Franklyn, and two other Rastas.

The response from government was swift, as a team of high officials, including Home Affairs Minister Roy McNeil; Member of Parliament Dr Herbert Eldemire, Chief of Staff of the Jamaica Defence Force Brigadier Paul Crook, and Commission of Police Noel Crosswell, flew from Kingston to Montego Bay. It is said that Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante ordered the capture of all Rastas, dead or alive.

For the next couple of weeks, Rastas, not only in St James, but also in other parts of western Jamaica, were persecuted through the trimming and shaving of their locks, detention, raids, the destruction of their camps, beatings, etc. The research did not come up with figures but it says many Rastafarians were killed in bloody clashes, even on Good Friday, April 12, which has come to be called ‘Bad Friday’ in many quarters. Approximately 150-160 Rastafarians were directly affected.

Rastafarians Leabert Jarrett, Clifford Larman and Carlton Brown were arrested and convicted in the St James Circuit Court for the murder of Corporal Clifford Melbourne. Their appeal was heard in the Court of Appeal from March 11 to May 21, 1964. The convictions of Larman and Brown were upheld, while that of Jarrett was quashed. He was subsequently released.

The Coral Gardens Incident/Coral Gardens Massacre has been a hot-button topic from the very moment it burst into flames. Blame has been thrown at the police, the government of the day, and the Rastafarian themselves. Benjamin Franklyn is said to have instigated the burning of the gas station. Some people said he did it out of frustration, others claimed that it was a robbery that went wrong.

But, it was the authoritarian response to the incident that people cannot seem to forgive the then government for. That it was an “uprising” was also disputed. The designation created much tension between the government and the media, as the word implied that it was an anti-government incident. After Minister of Development and Welfare Edward Seaga wrote to RJR and the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) about the matter, the JBC apologised on April 29, 1963.

After years of the Rastas demanding an apology and reparation, and on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, a Gleaner headline says, ‘ We are sorry – Gov’t apologises to Rastas for Coral Gardens incident’.

The lead paragraphs say, “The long-awaited apology from the Government to the residents of Coral Gardens, particularly the Rastafari community, for the atrocities meted out to them more than half a century ago, has finally come, accompanied with a bit of compensation.

“Prime Minister Andrew Holness officially apologised to the Rastafari community in Parliament yesterday and declared that the government would be ensuring a similar occurrence does not happen.”

Another paragraph says, “Holness yesterday outlined a number of tasks that the Government will follow through on to compensate the Rastafari community for the incident.”