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Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual
A dialogue held in Amherst, Massachusetts, where Rodney discussed his own political and intellectual development, and exchanged views on the role of the Black intellectual
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Walter Rodney
26 books588 followersIn his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed twentieth-century Jamaica’s most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney was assassinated.
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January 2, 2022
2,5 stars /// Interesting for those already familiar with Rodney's work, otherwise hard to access. But you definitely learn a thing or two about anti-(neo)-colonial consciousness, so that's great!
Contrary to what one might gather from the title of this book, it is not a collection of Walter Rodney's speeches. It is a narrative based on interviews with Rodney done on April 30 and May 1, 1975 at a round-table discussion held at the University of Massachusetts with African-American scholars Vincent Harding, William Strickland, Howard Dodson and the Jamaican scholar Robert Hill who were active in the Atlanta-based Institute of the Black World.
In it, Rodney reflects his early life in Guyana, his university education in Jamaica and at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London where he gained his Ph.d. at 24, his important years in Tanzania, his assessment of the situation in Africa, the Caribbean and the United States, his dissecting of the intersections between race and class, his clear exposition of the role of the Black intellectual and academic and his exploration of his formation as a Marxist.
When Rodney did these interviews he had just turned 33 and had only five more years to live. To people interested in his life and work, it is unfortunate that Rodney didn't get the chance to reflect the last five (very important) years of his life in such a concise way. In 1975, Rodney had made the transition back to Guyana where after a period of intensive political activity in opposition he was to be assassinated by the Forbes Burnham regime in 1980.
Walter Rodney Speaks is as close to an autobiography of Walter Rodney that one is likely to get. Of course it falls short of real autobiography because the personal-psychological elements are marginal to the text. Moreover, since the book was published after his death, Rodney couldn't give any editorial input whatsoever.
The book is hard to understand, especially if one is not familiar with Rodney's life and work. It doesn't provide enough context to grasp everything that Rodney is saying and referring to. Therefore, I would only recommend it to people who have studied Rodney before and/ or are very familiar with Marxist and Pan-African thought, and to people who are willing to put in the work and do some research on their own.
In the book, Rodney's personal commitment and determination to contribute in his capacity as a historian, political theorist and activist to the greater freedom of Black people becomes more than clear. Rodney was a historian who contributed nearly 200 pages about pre-colonial African and the slave trade. He also wrote the iconic treatise How Europe underdeveloped Africa, in which he analysed how Africa was deliberately exploited and underdeveloped by European colonial regimes.
Rodney was also a Pan-African and Marxist theorist. At age 26, he was banned from Jamaica (in 1968) for his popular educational work in the ghettoes of Kingston and his sharp criticism of capitalism and the role the middle class in post-independence Caribbean societies played. The decision to ban him from ever returning to Jamaica caused protests by students and the poor of West Kingston which escalated into a riot, known as the Rodney Riots, resulting in six deaths and causing millions of dollars in damages. He also served as a Professor of History at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
His contributions to the international Black freedom struggle are outstanding. Given Rodney's modesty not much of this contribution comes out from the interviews but the quality of mind that is reflected on these pages should alert the reader to the extraordinary analytical qualities that Rodney possessed and shared with so many in his brief life.
Rodney's development as a Marxist intellectual was shaped by his political experience in Guyana in the 50s when Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party led the anti-colonial struggle and had a strong socialist orientation. Speaking of himself and C.Y. Thomas (Guyanese economist and development theorist) Rodney said,
The second factor shaping his development was his experience of the Jamaican people.Their dynamism had a big impact on him as a student in Kingston and London and later on for a few months as a lecturer in 1968. Speaking of the 60s he said:
It was his years in Tanzania from 1966-1974 (except for several months in Jamaica in 1968) which were decisive in making him the figure he became. Tanzania offered the chance to play a role in the remaking of colonial society and put him in contact with the revolutionary movements of Southern Africa such as those operating in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. He was also in touch with the Vietnamese whom he admired. That experience was not possible in the Caribbean. It was the time when he did most of his research and writing on African issues and when through his teaching and participation in conferences developed close ties with intellectuals across the continent.
These were the most productive years of his life. It is out of this intellectual and political seasoning in Africa that he gave these interviews in 1975. Even though I found the book hard to understand there are certain lessons that I will definitely take from it, e.g. the firm belief that all people have the capacity for agency within themselves, oppressed people need to take destiny into their own hands and fight for their liberation as best as they can.
Moreover, Rodney stresses that it is important to view everything in context because analysis without context isn't worth much. He also details how difficult or nearly impossible it is to develop ideas in isolation, therefore a collective or a community is invaluable for stimulating new thought processes.
One thing his time in Tanzania taught him is that “a revolution has to be made by people who are going to be grounded in that situation, who are going to stay there, who are going to make it part of their lives.” In order to participate in a political situation one must know the culture of the country (its language, traditions etc.). As a Guyanese, it was hard for him to be politically active in Tanzania, especially in the beginning, since he wasn't familiar with the social and cultural codes of the country.
He also stressed how certain conceptions can vary greatly depending on where one was socialised. He gives the example of the different conceptions of race in North America, versus South America, versus Africa. In the same breath, he also warns that we, as Black people fighting for liberation, must be aware of being trapped in generalisations because “inasmuch as we share a history of common exploitation and oppression, we do have many aspects of our contemporary predicament upon which, for the purpose of precise analysis, it does not help to generalise. We have to look at each specific history and the context in which certain concepts and terms originate.”
But allowing to give space to our differences shouldn't be to the detriment of our international solidarity within the Black world, which is a key factor in liberation for Rodney. It is our responsibility to stand in solidarity with Black people, and other oppressed groups, across the globe. One thing Rodney said that really struck a chord with me was the following: “One must understand that contradictions among the people are not the same thing as contradictions with the people. One must understand that the purpose of debate is not to alienate and intimidate.”
There are so many things to learn from this slim book. I wish I had been better equipped to grasp it all. Unfortunately, half of it flew over my head. His criticism of capitalism and how it is intertwined with racism was interesting but not accessible to me. I didn't understand him fully. Same with his thoughts on anti-colonial consciousness (=> fighting the colonisers) versus anti-neo-colonial consciousness (=> fighting the colonisers and their indigenous lackeys). These are topics that I will keep reading about and then come back to Rodney for. There is so much to learn!
Contrary to what one might gather from the title of this book, it is not a collection of Walter Rodney's speeches. It is a narrative based on interviews with Rodney done on April 30 and May 1, 1975 at a round-table discussion held at the University of Massachusetts with African-American scholars Vincent Harding, William Strickland, Howard Dodson and the Jamaican scholar Robert Hill who were active in the Atlanta-based Institute of the Black World.
In it, Rodney reflects his early life in Guyana, his university education in Jamaica and at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London where he gained his Ph.d. at 24, his important years in Tanzania, his assessment of the situation in Africa, the Caribbean and the United States, his dissecting of the intersections between race and class, his clear exposition of the role of the Black intellectual and academic and his exploration of his formation as a Marxist.
When Rodney did these interviews he had just turned 33 and had only five more years to live. To people interested in his life and work, it is unfortunate that Rodney didn't get the chance to reflect the last five (very important) years of his life in such a concise way. In 1975, Rodney had made the transition back to Guyana where after a period of intensive political activity in opposition he was to be assassinated by the Forbes Burnham regime in 1980.
Walter Rodney Speaks is as close to an autobiography of Walter Rodney that one is likely to get. Of course it falls short of real autobiography because the personal-psychological elements are marginal to the text. Moreover, since the book was published after his death, Rodney couldn't give any editorial input whatsoever.
The book is hard to understand, especially if one is not familiar with Rodney's life and work. It doesn't provide enough context to grasp everything that Rodney is saying and referring to. Therefore, I would only recommend it to people who have studied Rodney before and/ or are very familiar with Marxist and Pan-African thought, and to people who are willing to put in the work and do some research on their own.
In the book, Rodney's personal commitment and determination to contribute in his capacity as a historian, political theorist and activist to the greater freedom of Black people becomes more than clear. Rodney was a historian who contributed nearly 200 pages about pre-colonial African and the slave trade. He also wrote the iconic treatise How Europe underdeveloped Africa, in which he analysed how Africa was deliberately exploited and underdeveloped by European colonial regimes.
Rodney was also a Pan-African and Marxist theorist. At age 26, he was banned from Jamaica (in 1968) for his popular educational work in the ghettoes of Kingston and his sharp criticism of capitalism and the role the middle class in post-independence Caribbean societies played. The decision to ban him from ever returning to Jamaica caused protests by students and the poor of West Kingston which escalated into a riot, known as the Rodney Riots, resulting in six deaths and causing millions of dollars in damages. He also served as a Professor of History at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
His contributions to the international Black freedom struggle are outstanding. Given Rodney's modesty not much of this contribution comes out from the interviews but the quality of mind that is reflected on these pages should alert the reader to the extraordinary analytical qualities that Rodney possessed and shared with so many in his brief life.
Rodney's development as a Marxist intellectual was shaped by his political experience in Guyana in the 50s when Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party led the anti-colonial struggle and had a strong socialist orientation. Speaking of himself and C.Y. Thomas (Guyanese economist and development theorist) Rodney said,
“We took with us, sometimes unknowingly, a willingness to accept at least the concepts of socialism/communism/Marxism/class struggle without any a priori rejection which many of our university colleagues did have. Many of the people with whom I was training at the University of the West Indies, Jamaicans in particular, were technically as skilled as any of us, but they had this fundamental reservation about socialist and Marxist thought which I don't think Clive Thomas and I ever shared ... my own development has been sort of very incremental.This is important because for Rodney unlike a number of other Caribbean Marxists, Marxism did not become a belief-system akin to religion. Not having been converted he owed no allegiance to either the Soviet or Chinese interpretation of Marxism. Marxism, for Rodney, was an intellectual tool.
It didn't have to take a flying leap at some point over the unknown. I didn't have to break with some very serious religious or moral or philosophical concepts or any fears that might have even had roots in my psyche-fears that somehow I was going to take up something that was evil.”
The second factor shaping his development was his experience of the Jamaican people.Their dynamism had a big impact on him as a student in Kingston and London and later on for a few months as a lecturer in 1968. Speaking of the 60s he said:
“There is a different pace of life in Jamaica, probably due to the fact that the population is larger and more concentrated. But there definitely is a greater pace. Trinidadians try to assume the role of city slickers almost, and are clever and fast, but for staying power, for sheer energy, Jamaican people seem to have us all beat.C.L.R. James, the Trinidadian historian, who led a study group which Rodney and other West Indian students attended in London in the mid-60s had a major influence on his development as a Marxist intellectual. Rodney said that “James has become a model of the possibilities of retaining one's intellectual and ideological integrity over a protracted period of time.” This sense of integrity and commitment to stand up for one's position reflected Rodney's strong moral sense. It is also a manifestation of Rodney's sense of belonging to an intellectual tradition of which James was a central intellectual and spiritual figure.
So that I always felt that there must be tremendous revolutionary potential in that island. One also saw it when one went to London. The Jamaicans were the largest group in London and they were also the most important group. I would really say that their sense of combativeness nipped British racism in the bud.”
It was his years in Tanzania from 1966-1974 (except for several months in Jamaica in 1968) which were decisive in making him the figure he became. Tanzania offered the chance to play a role in the remaking of colonial society and put him in contact with the revolutionary movements of Southern Africa such as those operating in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. He was also in touch with the Vietnamese whom he admired. That experience was not possible in the Caribbean. It was the time when he did most of his research and writing on African issues and when through his teaching and participation in conferences developed close ties with intellectuals across the continent.
These were the most productive years of his life. It is out of this intellectual and political seasoning in Africa that he gave these interviews in 1975. Even though I found the book hard to understand there are certain lessons that I will definitely take from it, e.g. the firm belief that all people have the capacity for agency within themselves, oppressed people need to take destiny into their own hands and fight for their liberation as best as they can.
Moreover, Rodney stresses that it is important to view everything in context because analysis without context isn't worth much. He also details how difficult or nearly impossible it is to develop ideas in isolation, therefore a collective or a community is invaluable for stimulating new thought processes.
One thing his time in Tanzania taught him is that “a revolution has to be made by people who are going to be grounded in that situation, who are going to stay there, who are going to make it part of their lives.” In order to participate in a political situation one must know the culture of the country (its language, traditions etc.). As a Guyanese, it was hard for him to be politically active in Tanzania, especially in the beginning, since he wasn't familiar with the social and cultural codes of the country.
He also stressed how certain conceptions can vary greatly depending on where one was socialised. He gives the example of the different conceptions of race in North America, versus South America, versus Africa. In the same breath, he also warns that we, as Black people fighting for liberation, must be aware of being trapped in generalisations because “inasmuch as we share a history of common exploitation and oppression, we do have many aspects of our contemporary predicament upon which, for the purpose of precise analysis, it does not help to generalise. We have to look at each specific history and the context in which certain concepts and terms originate.”
But allowing to give space to our differences shouldn't be to the detriment of our international solidarity within the Black world, which is a key factor in liberation for Rodney. It is our responsibility to stand in solidarity with Black people, and other oppressed groups, across the globe. One thing Rodney said that really struck a chord with me was the following: “One must understand that contradictions among the people are not the same thing as contradictions with the people. One must understand that the purpose of debate is not to alienate and intimidate.”
There are so many things to learn from this slim book. I wish I had been better equipped to grasp it all. Unfortunately, half of it flew over my head. His criticism of capitalism and how it is intertwined with racism was interesting but not accessible to me. I didn't understand him fully. Same with his thoughts on anti-colonial consciousness (=> fighting the colonisers) versus anti-neo-colonial consciousness (=> fighting the colonisers and their indigenous lackeys). These are topics that I will keep reading about and then come back to Rodney for. There is so much to learn!
November 10, 2020
he is a genius.
June 16, 2020
About the closest thing to an autobiography that we’re ever gonna get from the legendary scholar, activist, critic, and intellectual Walter Rodney.
The title of this book may be misleading; this isn’t a collection of speeches and essays, but rather a document of conversations held at the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta, GA in 1974. Featured here are Rodney’s reflections on his political and intellectual development, as well as a dialogue regarding the struggle of black Americans and what lessons could be learned from African struggles in the larger diaspora.
The conversations shown here were supposed to be the first of many, but all too tragically, Rodney was assassinated in his native Guyana in 1980.
The title of this book may be misleading; this isn’t a collection of speeches and essays, but rather a document of conversations held at the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta, GA in 1974. Featured here are Rodney’s reflections on his political and intellectual development, as well as a dialogue regarding the struggle of black Americans and what lessons could be learned from African struggles in the larger diaspora.
The conversations shown here were supposed to be the first of many, but all too tragically, Rodney was assassinated in his native Guyana in 1980.
September 24, 2025
my favorite marxist
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews