The imagery around him traces core Rastafari ideas. The flags of Ethiopia and Jamaica sit side by side: Jamaica as the movement’s birthplace, Ethiopia as its spiritual centre.
On the right of the mural, A regal profile of Emperor Haile Selassie I, regarded as a divinely appointed figure for Rastafari. Beneath him is the Lion of Judah, drawn from Ethiopian imperial symbolism and the Book of Revelation, representing strength and defiance.
A Psalm 27:1 quote sits to one side: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” Rastafari draws deeply on the Bible, especially the King James Version, but reads it through a lens shaped by African history and liberation.
Since its founding, the centre has served as a vital community hub, surviving funding pressures and threats of closure. But with Ras Bandele’s passing, a question looms: how do you carry a tradition forward without the generation that built it?
‘He left a constitution’
I’m welcomed in by Yeshawa, who manages the centre. Alongside her is her mother, Empress Sis Morowa, Ras Bandele’s widow, a softly spoken, calming presence.
Inside, the space sits somewhere between a living room, a shop, and a classroom. Records and posters line the walls, alongside clothing for sale and framed photographs of Emperor Haile Selassie. Djembes are stacked in a corner; a piano sits against one wall, a sofa against another.
People drift in and out. Some stop to talk, others just lean through the doorway to say hello. “It’s always operated as a drop-in — a space where you can meet people, same mind or different mind, and just tussle things around,” says Morowa. “If you want to pop round, play the piano, sit and chat, you’re always welcome.”
The building’s role as a community space dates back to 1994, after the attack on Black teenager Marlon Thomas on Durdham Down. The council handed the Grosvenor Road site to the Justice for Marlon Thomas campaign, who invited Ras Bandele Selassie in. He lived upstairs and transformed the ground floor into a Rastafari centre for St Paul’s, first offering counselling to a traumatised community.
Over time, it became a Black cultural hub. A place of calm in crisis, a first stop for people leaving prison and a steady presence for young people.
He offered spiritual counsel, historical grounding, and “reasoning” sessions — informal Rastafari gatherings built on discussion, listening and reflection.
“It was like an invisible magnet,” says Morowa of her late husband’s presence. “He had this rapport. He’d listen, deal with a lot of issues, and give people space.”
“He left a constitution,” adds Yeshawa, a way of holding the space that still guides how it’s run today.
But Morowa says the landscape around them has shifted. “The community has changed. A lot of the elders are no longer here,” she notes with a sigh. “We’ve got a new batch of people with different ideas — not specifically Rastafari.”
Rastafari had the answers
Ras Bandele Selassie was born in Jamaica, he moved to the UK in 1964, first to the Wiltshire town of Trowbridge, later settling in Bristol. He first encountered the teachings of Rastafari at Inkwerks on Hepburn Road, a Rasta centre that later became Kuumba.
To understand how Rastafari took root in Britain, I speak to Professor Shawn Sobers of UWE — a follower of Rastafari and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Sobers grew up in Bath, where Haile Selassie lived in exile at Fairfield House between 1936 and 1940. It is now both a community space and a place of pilgrimage. Ras Bandele himself was closely connected to Fairfield House.
For Sobers, the political climate of the 1970s and 80s shaped why many young Black Britons gravitated towards Rastafari, with its promise of cultural grounding and a spiritual return to Africa.
