March 23rd is Walter Rodney Day!!!

March 23rd is Walter Rodney Day!!! 

"Rodney combined his scholarship with activism and became a voice for the under-represented and disenfranchised – this distinguished him from his academic colleagues.  His interest in the struggles of the working class began at a young age with an introduction to politics by his father, and continued with his involvement in debating and study groups throughout his student years.  His PhD thesis illustrated his duality as an intellectual and activist as he challenged the prevailing assumptions about African history and put forth his own ideas and models for analyzing the history of oppressed peoples.  Influenced by the Black Power Movement in the U.S., third world revolutionaries and Marxist theory, Rodney began to actively challenge the status quo. In 1968, while a UWI professor in Jamaica, he joined others to object to the socio-economic and political direction of the government. Unlike his counterparts, however, Rodney involved the working class, including the Rastafarians (one of Jamaica’s most marginalized groups) in this dialogue.  His speeches and lectures to these groups were published as Grounding with My Brothers, and became central to the Caribbean Black Power Movement.  Rodney’s activities attracted the Jamaican government’s attention and after attending the 1968 Black Writers’ Conference in Montreal, Canada he was banned from re-entering the country.  This decision was to have profound repercussions, sparking widespread unrest in Kingston." Thank you Mr. Rodney for all of your contributions and inspiration! Please click the link below and learn more about Walter Rodney. :-) 

http://www.walterrodneyfoundation.org/biography/

"....an overall view of ancient African civilization and ancient African cultures is required to expunge the myths about the African past, which linger in the mind of Black people everywhere. This is the main revolutionary function of African History in our hemisphere." - Walter Rodney