Walter Rodney

Dr. Walter Anthony Rodney was a prominent Guyanese historian, political activist, and preeminent scholar who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980. He was sharply critical of the middle class’s role in the post-independence Caribbean. He was also a strong critic of capitalism and argued for a socialist development template. Rodney became a prominent Pan-Africanist and was important in the Black Power movement in the Caribbean and North America. While living in Dar es Salaam, he was influential in developing a new center of African learning and discussion. 

Rodney became increasingly active in politics, founding the Working People’s Alliance, a party that provided the most effective and credible opposition to the PNC government. On June 13, 1980, Walter Rodney, at the age of 38, was killed by a bomb in his car, a month after returning from the independence celebrations in Zimbabwe during a period of intense political activism.