On 07 April, 1982 US President Ronald Reagan arrived in Jamaica for a two-day state visit with Prime Minister Edward Seaga. The Rastafarian community held a longstanding adversarial position to Ronald Reagan, partly due to Reagan’s interventionist policies in the region, partly because of their distrust of the CIA and its rumored involvement in the assassination attempt on Bob Marley in December, 1976 and partly because of what they read into the number of letters in Reagan’s full name: Ronald Wilson Reagan – six letters in each name = 666.
A Grounation was held and recorded on the album “Churchical Chants” of the Nyabinghi. President Reagan and Pope John Paul II received a verbal lashing:
When Jah gets ready you’ve got to move, Dirty Pope Paul have to move, Reagan have to move, I’m have to move, When Selassie-I get ready, I’m have to move.
This was the first time a Grounation ceremony had been recorded.
