Robert Athlyi Rogers

Born in Anguilla on May 6, 1891, Robert Athlyi Rogers became a writer, preacher, and religious leader whose life moved between the Caribbean and the United States. He is best known as the author of The Holy Piby, published in 1924, and as the founder of the Afro-Athlican Constructive Church, a movement he used to promote Black pride, liberation, and a spiritual connection to Ethiopia.

Rogers was deeply influenced by the wider current of Black self-determination in the early 20th century. Sources connect his ministry with the ideas circulating around Marcus Garvey and other Pan-African thinkers, and they describe him traveling and preaching in the United States, the Caribbean, and beyond. Although his own church remained relatively small, The Holy Piby became his most enduring legacy and is often described as an important early text in the religious world that later shaped Rastafari.

He died in Newark, New Jersey, on August 24, 1931. Today he is remembered as one of Anguilla's notable literary and spiritual figures: a bold, complicated voice whose writing tried to imagine a faith and future centered on the dignity of Black people.