Walter Rodney : 1968 Revisited

Walter Rodney, a leading historian of Africa, a political activist and Caribbean intellectual before his untimely death in 1980, taught African History in Jamaica at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus in the late 1960s. Lewis’ article revisits Rodney’s political activism during this period within the context of pre-existing social movement among the urban poor and Rastafarian brethren. Rodney was expelled from the island in 1968 by the Jamaican government. Lewis argues that his expulsion was based on the fear that Rodney’s interactions with the urban poor and Rastafarian brethren could lead to the emergence of a radical political ideology which would pose a threat to the Jamaican political system and its power structure.

This republication, along with Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought (The Press UWI 1998), also by the same author, is timely as it marks the 30th anniversary of Rodney’s expulsion from Jamaica on 16 October 1968.