about pinnacle - from preface to the promised key - preface written by ras miguel lorne, the promised key written by leornard howell


'for some, leonard howell was the "doctor of divinity" for others he was "the counsellor", to his family he was "uncle percy" and there were some who called him "the gong".

his followers revered him next to his majesty - haile I selassie I; some elevated him above marcus garvey. however, one thing which cannot be denied him is that he did more work amongst the grass-roots than many who are now called heroes.

one of howell's monumental achievement was the establishing of "pinnacle" in st.catherine towards the latter part of the 1930's. by 1940, pinnacle was a successful economic venture. there were over three thousand brothers and sisters living and working together in one communal spirit, on over one hundred acres of land. they made shoes, burnt coal, burnt limestones to make whitewash; extensive farming of crops such as corn, cassava, peas, yams, vegetables, etc. livestocks such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, donkeys and chickens were in abundance.

the strength of the community can be deduced from supt c.a. mahon's article published in the police magazine 'mirror mirror'. there, he described a raid carried out on pinnacle in 1954 by the police. in one woman's possession they found 803.00 pounds(rk - english pounds of currency). of course, the police attributed this to the sale of ganja. the key factor, however, is that in most of the dwellings they entered they found sizeable portions of money indicating the strong viability of the community.

800 pounds in 1954 would be the equivalent of over 2 million jamaican dollars today and could have bought large amounts of land. the economic success, staggered the police and from then on numerous raids were carried out so as to break the back of such a strong and independent black community.

despite the numerous attacks, pinnacle survived until 1981, when an illegal court order forced them to remove from the property and they became scattered.

they are yet to recover from this dispersion.

the howellites had their own bakery at bond street in kingston and they had communities in st. thomas and kingston.'


ras k