Coral Gardens 1963: Bad Friday and the Persecution of Rastafari

The Coral Gardens incident of April 1963 was an outbreak of violence near Montego Bay, Jamaica, in which a small group of men associated with Rastafari attacked a petrol station and a guest house, leaving several people dead. The state response, remembered by Rastafari as "Bad Friday", was a wave of arrests, beatings and forced trimming of locks across the island. For decades the event symbolised the persecution of the movement, and in 2017 the Jamaican government formally apologised to the Rastafari community.

The present-day situation of the movement, including its legal recognition and the debate on reparations, is surveyed in Rastafari today.

Rastafari and the Jamaican State Before 1963§

From its beginnings Rastafari was treated by the colonial authorities as a threat. Leonard Howell was imprisoned for sedition in 1934, and his commune at Pinnacle was raided in 1941 and destroyed in 1954, as told in Leonard Howell and Pinnacle. In Kingston, Rastafari who lived in the slum districts of Back-o-Wall and the Dungle were frequently arrested, often for possession of ganja, and their dreadlocks made them easy targets.

The years around 1960 sharpened these fears. In 1959 the Reverend Claudius Henry, leader of the African Reform Church, sold thousands of cards promising passage to Africa on a given date; when no ships came, many followers were left destitute. In 1960 police found weapons at his headquarters in Kingston, and his son Ronald led a small armed band that killed several people, including two British soldiers, before being captured. Claudius Henry was convicted of treason felony, and the episode convinced many Jamaicans that Rastafari were dangerous.

At the same time, a study by M. G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford of the University College of the West Indies (1960) urged the government to treat Rastafari with respect, recommending better housing, an end to harassment and a mission to Africa to explore repatriation. A mission did visit Ethiopia and other African states in 1961. But Jamaica's independence in August 1962 did not end the hostility, and the new government under Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante remained deeply suspicious of the movement.

The Events of Holy Thursday, April 1963§

Coral Gardens lies near Montego Bay, in the parish of St James on Jamaica's north coast, an area then being developed for tourism on land that had once belonged to great sugar estates such as Rose Hall. Some Rastafari had been living and farming on land in the area whose ownership was disputed, and there had been clashes with landowners and police. Accounts agree that one of them, Rudolph Franklyn, had been shot and injured by police in an earlier confrontation and had been imprisoned.

On 11 April 1963, the Thursday before Easter, Franklyn and a few companions attacked a petrol station at Coral Gardens and set it on fire, and went on to a nearby guest house. In the violence that followed, a number of people were killed, among them civilians, police officers who came to the scene, and several of the attackers, including Franklyn himself. Accounts differ on the details and the sequence, but most give a total of eight deaths. The reasons for the attack remain debated: some sources stress Franklyn's grievances over land and his treatment by police, while others saw the attack as an act of religious or racial violence.

Bad Friday: Round-ups, Beatings and Trimmed Locks§

The response came at once and fell on the whole movement. Police and soldiers, joined by civilians, searched the hills around Montego Bay and then other parts of the island for Rastafari. Many were arrested; survivors later described being beaten, held without charge and forced to have their locks and beards cut off. Bustamante is widely reported to have said that Rastafari should be brought in "dead or alive", though the exact words are disputed and are known from later testimony rather than from a recorded statement.

Rastafari remember the day after the attack, Good Friday, 12 April 1963, as Bad Friday. The forced cutting of locks was especially painful for a community that regarded them as a sign of the Nazirite covenant, as described in Rastafari livity. Some of those detained were never involved in the violence and had no connection to Franklyn. Many lost homes, land and livelihoods, and some left the area for good.

Trials, Silence and Memory§

Several of the surviving attackers were tried for murder, and the event was treated in the press and in official statements as a criminal outbreak by violent fanatics. The suffering of the many Rastafari who had been rounded up was barely acknowledged. For decades the story was kept alive mainly within the movement, in reasoning, song and the testimony of elders who had been beaten or shorn.

The memory of Coral Gardens shaped the movement's relationship with the state through the 1960s and 1970s, including the demolition of Back-o-Wall in 1966, the same year as Haile Selassie's visit to Jamaica, described in Haile Selassie I in Rastafari. It also reinforced the Rastafari view of Babylon as a system of violence directed at the Black poor. Rastafari in St James began to hold annual commemorations at Easter, bringing together survivors and younger members.

In the 2000s, the anthropologist Deborah A. Thomas and her colleagues worked with survivors to record their testimony, producing the documentary Bad Friday: Rastafari after Coral Gardens (2011). Thomas later placed the event within a wider study of state violence and repair in Jamaica, arguing that acts of witnessing and acknowledgement are themselves part of how communities heal.

The Road to an Apology: The Public Defender and 2017§

Rastafari organisations had long called for an inquiry, an apology and reparations. In the 2010s the office of the Public Defender investigated the events and, in a report presented in 2015, concluded that the state had violated the rights of the Rastafari who were detained and abused. It recommended a formal apology and compensation for survivors.

In April 2017 Prime Minister Andrew Holness made a formal apology in Parliament on behalf of the government of Jamaica, acknowledging that the state had wronged the Rastafari community at Coral Gardens. The government announced a trust fund to benefit survivors, along with other measures. Rastafari responses were mixed: many welcomed the apology as a historic acknowledgement, while others argued that compensation was small, that many survivors had died before it came, and that wider issues of land and reparation remained unaddressed.

Coral Gardens and the Wider Question of Reparation§

Coral Gardens now stands at the centre of a broader Rastafari claim for repair, which links the persecution of the movement to the history of slavery and colonialism. Rastafari groups have been active in the Caribbean movement for reparations for slavery, and they have argued for the protection of sites such as Pinnacle and for land for Rastafari communities. The decriminalisation of ganja in Jamaica in 2015 and its recognition as a Rastafari sacrament, described in ganja in Rastafari, is seen by many as part of the same slow reversal of past hostility.

For scholars of religion, the story illustrates a pattern familiar from the history of new religious movements: a marginal group, feared and stigmatised, is first suppressed and later accepted as part of national life, while its members insist that acceptance must include an honest account of past injustice.

Frequently asked questions§

What happened at Coral Gardens in 1963?§

On 11 April 1963 a small group led by Rudolph Franklyn attacked a petrol station and a guest house at Coral Gardens near Montego Bay, and several people died, including police officers and attackers. The authorities responded with a sweeping round-up in which many Rastafari who had nothing to do with the attack were detained, beaten and had their locks cut.

Why do Rastafari call it Bad Friday?§

The round-up began on Good Friday, 12 April 1963. Rastafari renamed the day "Bad Friday" to remember the violence and humiliation inflicted on their community.

Did the Jamaican government apologise for Coral Gardens?§

Yes. In April 2017 Prime Minister Andrew Holness formally apologised to the Rastafari community, following a report by the Public Defender, and announced a trust fund to benefit survivors.

Sources and further reading§

• Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation: Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair — Deborah A. Thomas, 2019
• The Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica — M. G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford, 1960
• Radicalism and Social Change in Jamaica, 1960–1972 — Obika Gray, 1991
• Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney — Horace Campbell, 1985
• Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers — Ennis Barrington Edmonds, 2003
• Rastafari: Roots and Ideology — Barry Chevannes, 1994
• The Rastafarians — Leonard E. Barrett, 1977