The original Rastas drew their inspiration from the philosphies of Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887-1940), who promoted the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the 1920s. The organization's main goal was to unite black people with their rightful homeland, Africa. Garvey believed that all black people in the western world should return to Africa since they were all descended from Africans. He preached that the European colonizers, having fragmented the African continent, unfairly spread the African population throughout the world.

After spending nearly a decade in the United States and Great Britain, Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1927, where he spread his political views among the black working class.

In 1930, Prince Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned the new Emperor of Ethiopia.

This announcement was a monumental event that many blacks in Africa and the Americas saw as the fulfillment of Garvey's prophecy years before.