Walter Rodney | |
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| Born | Walter Anthony Rodney (1942-03-23)23 March 1942 |
| Died | 13 June 1980(1980-06-13) (aged 38) Georgetown,Guyana |
| Cause of death | Car bomb |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of London SOAS, University of London |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | African studies |
| Notable works | How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) |
| Website | www |
Walter Anthony Rodney (23 March 1942 – 13 June 1980) was aGuyanese historian, political activist and academic. His notable works includeHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa, first published in 1972. He was assassinated inGeorgetown,Guyana, in 1980.
Walter Anthony Rodney was born in 1942 into a working-class family inGeorgetown,Guyana.[citation needed] He attended theUniversity College of the West Indies in 1960 and was awarded a first-class honours degree in history in 1963. He earned aPhD inAfrican History in 1966 at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies inLondon,England, at the age of 24.[1] His dissertation, which focused on theslave trade on the UpperGuinea Coast, was published by theOxford University Press in 1970 under the titleA History of the Upper Guinea Coast 1545–1800 and was widely acclaimed for its originality in challenging the conventional wisdom on the topic.[citation needed]
Rodney travelled widely and became known internationally as anactivist,scholar and formidable orator. He taught at theUniversity of Dar es Salaam inTanzania during the periods 1966–67 and 1969–1974 and in 1968 at his alma materUniversity of the West Indies atMona, Jamaica.[citation needed] He was sharply critical of themiddle class for its role in thepost-independence Caribbean. He was also a strong critic ofcapitalism and argued that only under "the banner of Socialism and through the leadership of the working classes" could Africa break from imperialism.[2]
On 15 October 1968, the government of Jamaica, led by Prime MinisterHugh Shearer, declared Rodneypersona non grata. The decision to ban him from ever returning to Jamaica and his subsequent dismissal by the University of the West Indies, Mona, caused protests by students and the poor ofWest Kingston that escalated into a riot, known as theRodney riots, resulting in six deaths and causing millions of dollars in damages.[3] The riots, which began on 16 October 1968, triggered an increase in political awareness across the Caribbean, especially among the AfrocentricRastafarian sector of Jamaica, documented in Rodney's bookThe Groundings with my Brothers, published byBogle-L'Ouverture Publications in 1969.
In 1969, Rodney returned to theUniversity of Dar es Salaam. He was promoted to senior lecturer there in 1971 and promoted to associate professor in 1973.[4] He worked at the university until 1974 when he returned to Guyana.[5][3] He was promised a professorship at the University of Guyana in Georgetown but theForbes Burnham government rescinded the offer when Rodney arrived in Guyana.[5]
Rodney was close toC.L.R. James, among others, and supported the socialist government ofJulius Nyerere. While his academic work contributed "to the emergence of decolonised African social sciences," Rodney worked to disseminate knowledge in Tanzanian villages, where he spoke inKiswahili, the language of the people.[6] He continued his pan-African activism and, analysing the causes of the continent's underdevelopment, publishedHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa in 1972. With a view to thePan-African Congress of 1974, he prepared a text on the "international class struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America." In the landmark work, Rodney denounced leaders who, likeFélix Houphouët-Boigny,Jean-Claude Duvalier,Idi Amin Dada andJoseph Mobutu, were turning totribalism under the guise of "negritude."
Rodney became a prominentPan-Africanist andMarxist and was important in theBlack Power movement in theCaribbean and North America. While living inDar es Salaam, he was influential in developing a new centre of African learning and discussion.
In 1974, Rodney returned toGuyana from Tanzania.[7] He was due to take up a position as a professor at theUniversity of Guyana, but the Guyanese government prevented his appointment. Increasingly active in politics, he joined theWorking People's Alliance (WPA),[8] a party that provided the most effective and credible opposition to thePeople's National Congress government and aimed to "create political consciousness, replacing ethnic politics with revolutionary organisations based on class solidarity."[6] In 1979, he was arrested and charged witharson after two government offices were burned. The trial was deferred three times and later dropped for lack of evidence.[9]
On 13 June 1980, Rodney was killed in Georgetown, at the age of 38, by an explosive communication device in his car, a month after he had returned from celebrations ofindependence in Zimbabwe during a time of intense political activism. He was survived by his wife, Patricia, and three children. His brother, Donald Rodney, who was injured in the explosion, said that a sergeant in theGuyana Defence Force and a member of theHouse of Israel,[10] named Gregory Smith, had given Walter the explosive that killed him. After the killing, Smith fled toFrench Guiana, where he died in 2002.[11] The British politicianSamuel Silkin stated in 1979 that he found Rodney "to be a deeply intelligent and compassionate man, with a hatred of bloodshed but a deep and growing fear that violence and civil war might be the inevitable consequence of Burnham's determination to hold on to power by all available means".[citation needed]
It is widely believed but not proven that the assassination was set up by the Guyanese President. The Guyanese Government, led byLinden Forbes Burnham, was found liable for Rodney’s death in the 2017 Commission of Inquiry.[12][13] Rodney believed that the various ethnic groups that were historically disenfranchised by the ruling colonial class should work together, a position that challenged Forbes Burnham's hold on power.[14]
In 2014,[15] a Commission of Inquiry (COI) was held during which a new witness, Holland Gregory Yearwood, came forward claiming to be a long-standing friend of Rodney and a former member of the WPA. Yearwood testified that Rodney had presented detonators to him weeks prior to the explosion asking for assistance in assembling a bomb.[16] However, the same Commission of Inquiry concluded in its report that Rodney's death had been a state-ordered killing and that then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham must have had knowledge of the plot.[17][18]
Donald Rodney, Walter's brother, was in the car with him during the time of the assassination and was convicted in 1982 of possessing explosives in connection with the incident that had killed his brother. On 14 April 2021, the Guyana Court of Appeals overturned the judgment and Donald's sentence and exonerated him after forty years in which he contested his conviction.[19][20]
On 9 August 2021, theNational Assembly of Guyana voted to adopt "Resolution No. 23" to implement the 2016 findings of "The Commission of Inquiry Appointed to Enquire and Report on the Circumstances Surrounding the Death in An Explosion of the Late Dr. Walter Rodney on Thirteenth Day of June, One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Eighty at Georgetown."[21]
Rodney's most influential book isHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa, published in 1972 byBogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London, England and the Tanzanian Publishing House (TPH) Dar es Salaam Tanzania. In it Rodney described howAfrica had been exploited byEuropeanimperialists, which he argued led directly to the modernunderdevelopment of most of the continent. The book became influential and controversial. It was groundbreaking in that it was among the first to bring a new perspective to the question of underdevelopment in Africa. Rodney's analysis went far beyond the previously accepted approach in the study ofThird World underdevelopment.
Rodney's community-grounded approach to mass education during the 1960s and his detailed descriptions of his pedagogical approach inGroundings (1969) document his role as an important critical pedagogue and contemporary ofPaulo Freire.[22]
Rodney's death was commemorated in a poem byMartin Carter entitled "For Walter Rodney," by the dub poetLinton Kwesi Johnson in "Reggae fi Radni," and byKamau Brathwaite in his poem "Poem for Walter Rodney" (Elegguas, 2010).David Dabydeen also wrote a poem on Rodney in his 1988 collectionCoolie Odyssey.
In 1977, the African Studies Centre atBoston University inaugurated the Walter Rodney Lecture Series.
In 1982, theAmerican Historical Association posthumously awarded Walter Rodney theAlbert J. Beveridge Award forA History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905.
In 1984, the Centre for Caribbean Studies at theUniversity of Warwick established the Walter Rodney Memorial Lecture in recognition of the life and work of one of the most outstanding scholar-activists of the Black Diaspora in the post-World War II era.
In 1993, the Guyanese government posthumously awarded Walter Rodney Guyana's highest honour, theOrder of Excellence of Guyana. The Guyanese government also established the Walter Rodney Chair in History at theUniversity of Guyana.
In 1998, the Institute of Caribbean Studies at theUniversity of the West Indies inaugurated the Walter Rodney Lecture Series.
In 2004, Rodney's widow Patricia and his children donated his papers to theRobert L. Woodruff Library of theAtlanta University Center. Since 2004, an annual Walter Rodney Symposium has been held each 23 March (Rodney's birthday) at the Center under the sponsorship of the Library and thePolitical Science Department ofClark Atlanta University, and under the patronage of the Rodney family.
In 2005, theLondon Borough of Southwark erected a plaque in thePeckham Library Square in commemoration of Dr. Walter Rodney, the political activist, historian and global freedom fighter.
In 2006, an International Conference on Walter Rodney was held at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam.
In 2006, the Walter Rodney Essay Competition was established in the Department of Afro-American and African Studies at theUniversity of Michigan.
In 2006, the Walter Rodney Foundation was established by the Rodney family. It is headquartered inAtlanta and aims to share the works and legacy of Rodney with the world.[23]
In 2010, the Walter Rodney Commemorative Symposium was held atYork College.[24]
The Department of African American Studies atSyracuse University has established theAngela Davis/Walter Rodney Award of Academic Achievement.
The Department of Afro-American and African Studies (DAAS) at the University of Michigan established theDuBois-Mandela-Rodney Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.
In 2012, the Walter Rodney Conference celebrating the 40th anniversary of the publication ofHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa was held atBinghamton University.
In 2022, at the 36th Elsa Goveia Memorial Lecture,50th Anniversary of Dr. Walter Rodney's Book: "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa", was presented byHorace G. Campbell atUniversity of the West Indies.
Rodney is the subject of the 2010 documentary film by Clairmont Chung,W.A.R. Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney.[25]
The Walter Rodney Close in theLondon Borough of Newham has been named in honour of Rodney.
Walter Rodney is listed on the Black Achievers Wall in theInternational Slavery Museum, Liverpool, UK.
In 2022 and 2023,SAVVY Contemporary, an independent art space in Berlin (Germany), dedicated a research, performance and exhibition project, titled to Walter Rodney, fifty years after the publication of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.[26]
Father-and-son filmmaking duo Arlen Harris and Daniyal Harris-Vadja directed a 2023 documentary exploring Rodney's life,Walter Rodney: What They Don’t Want You to Know.[27]
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