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E
mperor Haile Selassie’s
journey to his point of depar-
ture from Jamaica today halted
for a precious ten minutes at Spanish
Town yesterday when police battled
with spectators in a melee that marred
the first rail strip of the trip to Montego
Bay.
A ten-year-old schoolboy, two
police officers and several other per-
sons were injured in a baton-weilding,
stone-throwing, free-for-all in which
the police were forced to use tear gas
to disperse sections of a vast throng at
the Spanish Town Railway station. But
elsewhere on the journey where stops
were made – at Denbigh, Williams-
field, Maggotty, and Montpelier – the
brief ceremonial functions went off
without serious incident.
It was a journey of just under eight
hours that took the Emperor of Ethio-
pia across the Jamaican landscape
and through scenes of enthusiastic
welcome at each crowded rail town.
Except at Spanish Town and Montego
Bay, only pockets of Ras Tafarian
the countryside
WHEEL AN’ TUN ME, song and dance by pupils of the Glen Stuart Primary School at Magotty on Saturday, April 23, 1966
for Emperor Haile Selassie.