Monty Howell, the oldest son of Leonard Howell, (widely regarded as the founder and the father of the Rastafari Movement in Jamaica) will be the special guest at the Leonard Howell (115TH EARTHDAY) Celebrations starting with a Symposium at the UWI Mona Campus, on Friday, June 14, at the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre from 6pm to 9pm. Download event flyer

The symposium is being staged by The UWI Mona Rastafari Studies Initiative
and the Dept of Sociology, Psychology & Social Work, UWI, Mona Campus in conjunction with the Leonard P. Howell Foundation.

The Symposium will specifically look at Pinnacle, (the Rastafari encampment in the Sligoville area, founded by Leonard Howell in 1940, when he bought the property from a Mr Chang.)

During its existence (1940-1956) the encampment was raided several times by the police. Monty himself, who was a teenager at the time, suffered the indignity of being dragged out of his dwellings at Pinnacle by the police, and thrown into the back of a police van, as the police in their final raid on the camp, bulldozed much of the properties, and rendered it inhabitable in 1956.)

 Although a very traumatic experience for Monty and his younger brother Billy (Blade) Howell,(who was also thrown off Pinnacle), he is now ready to tell his story and his continuing battle to have Pinnacle declared a National Heritage Site. 

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