Rasta Church in Bedstuy, Procession

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A pigment print photograph depicting the Rastafarian community at the Brooklyn site of The Church Haile Selassie I, in the middle of a service. Men and women stand in wooden pews facing the red curtained front of the church where there is a candlelit altar and yellow-cloth podium. In the aisle of the small church, a procession of clergymen dressed in gold robes with trim in the Ethiopian colors of red, yellow, and green walks carrying various objects representative of Haile Selassie. The front priest holds open a striped book with a drawing of Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie I. The clergy behind him carries a long pole with a large silver Star of David as its head, also wrapped in the Ethiopian colors. Two final clergymen follow the first two. On the left of the photograph, partially visible, is a framed color painting of Haile Salassie I, dressed in formal military hat and jacket.

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