Remembering Walter Rodney: 45 Years Since the Assassination of a Revolutionary Intellectual 13 June 1980
Remembering Walter Rodney: 45 Years Since the Assassination of a Revolutionary Intellectual. March 23, 1942– 13 June 1980. On this day, 45 years ago, the world lost one of its sharpest revolutionary minds. Walter Rodney, the Guyanese historian, Pan-Africanist, and political activist, was assassinated.
On 13 June 1980 in a car bombing in Georgetown. He was just 38 years old. Rodney’s murder was not just the silencing of a man — it was an attack on an entire movement for justice, self-determination, and Black liberation. But his ideas, his passion, and his fearless critique of imperialism remain alive and deeply relevant today.
Scholar. Teacher. Revolutionary. Born in 1942, Rodney’s intellectual journey began in Jamaica at the University of the West Indies. There, he rejected the safe route of becoming a technocrat. Instead, he turned his gaze toward Africa, drawn to the continent’s liberation struggles and post-colonial rebirth. By 24, he had earned his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
His doctoral research boldly challenged mainstream accounts of the transatlantic slave trade, holding Europe accountable for its enduring crimes. But Rodney was never content with the ivory tower. He believed knowledge had to serve the people. From Dar es Salaam to Kingston: Building Movements Across Borders Rodney went on to teach at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, then a hub for radical thought under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere.
There, he helped shape a new generation of African historians and thinkers committed to liberation. When he returned to Jamaica in the late 1960s, he didn’t stay in classrooms alone. He moved among the people — reasoning with Rastafarians, lecturing to street-side crowds, and aligning himself with the poor and working class. His radical clarity and deep connection to grassroots movements made him a threat to Jamaica’s political elite. In 1968, the government banned him from re-entering the country.
His supporters took to the streets in what became known as the Rodney Riots — a defining moment in Caribbean political resistance. “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” – A Wake-Up Call to the World After Jamaica, Rodney returned to Tanzania, where he wrote what many consider his magnum opus: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Published in 1972, the book remains a cornerstone of anti-colonial thought. It argued that underdevelopment in Africa was no accident but the result of centuries of European exploitation.
For many, it provided a historical lens to understand contemporary inequality and called for Pan-African unity and socialist transformation. Assassination and Afterlife Rodney eventually returned to Guyana and plunged into political organizing, forming the Working People’s Alliance to challenge the repressive regime of Forbes Burnham. It was a bold, dangerous move.
On June 13, 1980, Rodney was lured into a trap by an army informant and killed by a bomb placed in his car. 30,000 mourners gathered to say farewell — a testament to the love and respect he had earned across borders and classes. Today, his influence still echoes — from the pages of his books to the speeches of Caribbean leaders like Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who credit Rodney’s ideas with shaping their political consciousness.
