WHO knew that a song rejected by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s (JCDC) Festival Song selection committee would end up being a reggae classic?

Equal Rights, a song by The Heptones, failed to make the final cut of the 1968 Festival Song Contest. That year, Intensified by Desmond Dekker and The Aces top the field.

It was a big disappointment for Heptones member and writer Leroy Sibbles who says he poured his heart and soul into it.

“I thought everyone would be as conscious as I was in black people and their way of life but they just weren’t ready yet,” Sibbles reflected in an interview with the Sunday Observer.

According to Sibbles, he wrote the song because it was appropriate. At the time, he was deeply into “stuff like that” given the power of the Civil Rights and Black Power movement in the United States.

Sibbles says he read everything he could get his hands on pertaining to black history. This zeal inspired the song.

Following its rejection by the JCDC, producer Clement ‘Coxson’ Dodd of Studio One released Equal Rights and it immediately connected with the public.

For Sibbles, that reception was a vindication of the song’s quality.

“I was not surprised it took off. That was my intention for it to do well from the beginning. I thought the topic was great and it should have gathered a lot of interest,” he said.

Equal Rights has been covered by top reggae acts including Dennis Brown and Freddie McGregor.

Leroy Sibbles says the song is as relevant as 45 years ago when it was first recorded.

“The song was ahead of its time, maybe that’s why it was rejected. The people’s consciousness was just halfway there.”