Walter Rodney was both scholar and activist

Jun 14, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Kudos to Mohabir Anil Nandall, SC, Guyana’s Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs for finally setting the long overdue record straight on the death of Dr. Walter Rodney.
To our young Guyanese who don’t know who Dr. Walter Rodney was, here is brief summary of the life and death of one of the most  (if not the most) brilliant minds ever to be born in Guyana.
Walter Anthony Rodney was born to Edward and Pauline Rodney in Georgetown, Guyana on March 23, 1942. He developed into an intellectual and scholar and is recognised as one of the Caribbean’s most brilliant minds.
Rodney’s academic record is filled with awards, open scholarships and honours.  He attended Queen’s College, the top male high school in the British Guiana, and in 1960 graduated first in his class, winning an open scholarship to the University of the West Indies (UWI). He pursued his undergraduate studies at UWI Mona Campus in Jamaica, where he graduated with 1st class honours in History in 1963.  Rodney then attended the School of Oriental and African Studies in London where, at the age of 24, he received his PhD with honours in African History. Rodney’s thesis, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, was published by Oxford University Press in 1970.
Rodney combined his scholarship with activism and became a voice for the under-represented and disenfranchised – this distinguished him from his academic colleagues.  His interest in the struggles of the working class began at a young age with an introduction to politics by his father, and continued with his involvement in debating and study groups throughout his student years.  His PhD thesis illustrated his duality as an intellectual and activist as he challenged the prevailing assumptions about African history and put forth his own ideas and models for analysing the history of oppressed peoples.  Influenced by the Black Power Movement in the U.S., third world revolutionaries and Marxist theory, Rodney began to actively challenge the status quo.
In 1968, while a UWI professor in Jamaica, he joined others to object to the socio-economic and political direction of the government. Unlike his counterparts, however, Rodney involved the working class, including the Rastafarians (one of Jamaica’s most marginalized groups) in this dialogue.  His speeches and lectures to these groups were published as ‘Grounding with My Brothers’, and became central to the Caribbean Black Power Movement.  Rodney’s activities attracted the Jamaican government’s attention and after attending the 1968 Black Writers’ Conference in Montreal, Canada, he was banned from re-entering the country.  This decision was to have profound repercussions, sparking widespread unrest in Kingston.
In 1974, Walter returned to Guyana to take up an appointment as Professor of History at the University of Guyana, but the government rescinded the appointment. But Rodney remained in Guyana, joined the newly formed political group, the Working People’s Alliance.  Between 1974 and 1979, he emerged as the leading figure in the resistance movement against the increasingly authoritarian PNC government.  He gave public and private talks all over the country that served to engender a new political consciousness in the country.  During this period, he developed his ideas on the self emancipation of the working people, People’s Power, and multiracial democracy.
As the WPA gained popularity and momentum, the PNC began a campaign of harassment including police raids, house searches, and beatings.  On July 11, 1979, Walter, together with seven others, was arrested following the burning down of two government offices. Rodney and four others (known as the “Referendum Five”) faced trumped-up charges of arson, but without proof and scrutiny from international supporters, the government was forced to drop these charges. Rodney’s voice was not confined to Africa and the Caribbean but was also heard in the U.S. and Europe. In the early-mid 1970s, he participated in discussions and lectures with the African Heritage Studies Association at Howard University; the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta, GA; the African Studies and Research Center at Cornell University; and the State University of New York at Binghamton.
The persecution, however, continued: two party members were killed, and the government denied Rodney and others permission to travel.  Despite this, Rodney continued his political work and attended Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations in May 1980.
The PNC party headed by Forbes Burnham realised Dr. Rodney was a political force to be reckoned with, and they were afraid of his rising popularity among both the Africans and Indians in Guyana.  On Friday, June 13, 1980, Walter Anthony Rodney was assassinated by a bomb in Georgetown, Guyana. He was 38 years old.
Though Rodney lived with constant police harassment and frequent threats against his life, he nonetheless managed to complete four books in the last year of his life: an academic work, ‘A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905; A political call to action, ‘People’s Power, No Dictator’; and two children’s books, ‘Kofi Baadu Out of Africa’ and ‘Lakshmi Out of India’.
Walter Rodney was married to Patricia Rodney and together they have three children – Shaka, Kanini and Asha.   They also have three grandchildren – Asia, Kai and Skye. A bust memorial should be set up to honour the life, works and legacy of Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney – one of Guyana’s most brilliant minds.
Yours truly
Gloria Holder

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