Walter Rodney

Who is Walter Rodney?

Walter Rodney was a Guyanese historian, political activist, and Pan-Africanist scholar whose work reshaped the study of African and Caribbean history. Educated at Queen's College in Georgetown and the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, he earned a doctorate in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He taught in Jamaica and Tanzania before returning to Guyana, where his 1972 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa became a foundational text of dependency theory, arguing that European colonialism had systematically extracted wealth and stunted development across Africa. In Guyana he co-founded the Working People's Alliance (WPA), a multiracial socialist party that challenged the ruling People's National Congress government of Forbes Burnham. His outspoken activism and growing popularity made him a target of the government; he survived an earlier arson attack before being killed on 13 June 1980 in Georgetown, when a bomb concealed in a walkie-talkie handed to him exploded in his car. A Guyanese Commission of Inquiry later concluded state agents were implicated in his death, and his assassination remains one of the most significant political killings in Guyanese history.

Sources: Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) · Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry, Final Report (Guyana, 2016) · Lewis, Rupert, Walter Rodney's Intellectual and Political Thought (1998)