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Museum object · Sacred and Ceremonial Objects

Rasta Church in Bedstuy, Blessing

2007; printed 2021

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America

COLLECTION RECORDImage not availableExplore the catalog description and source record.
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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. Captured within in the wooden pews on the side of church where the women sit, the priest presents an open book to a woman dressed in a white dress and headscarf, who bows to it. The priest wears a long gold robe with stripes of red and green on its sleeves, and a white long sleeve shirt beneath the robe. A woman wearing a white dress and pink headscarf holds a small child in her arms and stands in the aisle behind the priest and bowing woman. Two young girls, also dressed in white, the smallest one wearing an ornate red, gold and green headscarf – the other in a long white headscarf, stand in the same aisle as the priest, and face forward.

Sources & collection details

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — original record ↗

Source collection ↗

Catalog metadata · CC0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

Catalog reference: 2022.18.5

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