Walter Rodney born - March 23, 1942

On this day in 1942, historian and activist Walter Rodney was born.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey everyone, it's Eves again, speaking to you
from the comfort of my home. Welcome to another episode
of This Day and History Class. Today is March. The

(00:24):
day was March nineteen forty two Guyanese historian and activist
Walter Rottney was born. He's remembered for his scholarship and
activism concerning the working class and black people around the world.
Rottney was born to Edward and Pauline Rottney in Georgetown,
British Guyana or present day Guyana, British Guyana was a

(00:46):
colony that was part of the British West Indies. After
World War Two, there were increasing demands for political independence
in Guyana. The People's Progressive Party, a left wing political
party formed in the early night teen fifties in the colony.
Rottney's perspectives developed in the midst of this rising anti
colonial sentiment. During that decade, Rottney distributed People's Progressive Party manifestos.

(01:13):
He began attending Queen's College, a high school in Guyana.
There he edited the school's newspaper and participated in the
debate society. He graduated in nineteen sixty and won a
scholarship to the University College of the West Indies. He
graduated with a degree in history in nineteen sixty three.
He went on to attend the University of London, where

(01:34):
he got a doctorate in African history. His thesis was
called a History of the Upper Guinea Coast to eighteen
hundred in England. Rottney continued to recognize how scholarship divorced
history from politics. Rottney took a job as a lecturer
in Tanzania, but he left to teach at the University

(01:54):
of the West Indies in Jamaica. There he taught African history,
hilding the importance of Africa and Caribbean history and the
impact of historical resistance against slavery and colonialism. He advocated
for the working class and criticized the government's policies. He
gave lectures to marginalized groups in Jamaica and became a

(02:16):
key figure in the Black power movement. After he went
to the Black Writers Conference in Montreal in nineteen sixty eight,
Rottney was declared prasanna non grata by the Jamaican government
and banned from returning to the country. People protested his banning,
but he continued to speak out on the repression of
darker Jamaicans. He taught in Tanzania for a few years,

(02:39):
publishing his best known work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, But
in nineteen seventy four he returned to Guyana, which had
gained independence in nineteen sixty six, to take a position
as a professor of history at the University of Guyana.
Though his appointment to the university was revoked, he stayed
in Guyana and he came a leader of the Working

(03:01):
People's Alliance, a political group formed in the nineteen seventies
in opposition to the regime of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
Rodney gave lectures in Jamaica, Europe and the US, and
he continued his vocal resistance to Burnham as the government
proceeded to sponsor police raids and beatings. In July of
nineteen seventy nine, he and seven other people were arrested

(03:25):
after two government offices were burned down. He faced charges
of arson but was acquitted. Though he and his peers
faced persecution, he maintained his criticism of the government and
the constitution, but on June nine, eighty Rottney died in
a bomb explosion. The bomb was allegedly given to him

(03:46):
by someone in the Guyana Defense Force. Is suspected that
the assassination was orchestrated by Burnham. Rottney was survived by
his wife and three children. Some of his works were
published posthumously. I'm Eve Jeffcote and hopefully you know a
little more about history today than you did yesterday. And

(04:07):
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(04:34):
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