Walter Rodney, born in Guyana on this day in 1942, Pan-African, Marxist intellectual who was assassinated by the Guyanese government in 1980 at 38 years old.
Rodney attended the University College of the West Indies in 1960 and was awarded a first class honors degree in History in 1963. He later earned a PhD in African History in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England, at the age of 24.
Rodney traveled extensively and became well-known as an activist, scholar, and formidable orator. He taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from 1966-67 and 1969-1974, and in 1968 at his alma mater University of the West Indies.
On October 15th, 1968, the government of Jamaica declared Rodney a “persona non grata” and banned him from the country. Following his dismissal by the University of the West Indies, students and poor people in West Kingston protested, leading to the “Rodney Riots”, which caused six deaths and millions of dollars in damages.
In 1972, Rodney published “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”. Historian Melissa Turner describes the work this way: “A brutal critique of long-standing and persistent exploitation of Africa by Western powers, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains a powerful, popular, and controversial work in which Rodney argued that the early period of African contact with Europe, including the slave trade, sowed the seeds for continued African economic underdevelopment and had dramatically negative social and political consequences as well. He argued that, while the roots of Africa’s ailments rested with intentional underdevelopment and exploitation under European capitalist and colonial systems, the only way for true liberation to take place was for Africans to become cognizant of their own complicity in this exploitation and to take back the power they gave up to the exploiters.”
On June 13th, 1980, Rodney was killed in Georgetown, Guyana via a bomb given to him by Gregory Smith, a sergeant in the Guyana Defence Force, one month after returning Zimbabwe. In 2015, a “Commission of Inquiry” in Guyana that the country’s then president, Linden Forbes Burnham, was complicit in his murder.
“If there is to be any proving of our humanity it must be through revolutionary means.”
- Walter Rodney
I hope you nerds have a great March. 
Remember no crackers
White “leftists” immediately turn into DNC propagandists the second you speak ill of Ziohran Copdani. Completely indistinguishable from the genocide-loving Kamala libs of November 2024. They slobbered over his unachievable “pledges” and “promises” and now that it isn’t happening all they can do is resort to gaslighting about how “nobody ever said he was actually going to do anything” and going “umm sweaty he’s just a mayor why do you care so much?”
Oh I guess he put in a bunch of bike lanes though lmao. Mission accomplished.
Tangent
Don’t get me going about white “leftist” urbanism that incessantly worships shitty dilapidated European trains but avoids mentioning China like the plague. I remember when a video got posted to one of those subreddits of a Chinese drone going around busting people for traffic violations like occupying bus lanes and running red lights and they all predictably had a meltdown over muh 1984 police state red fascism.
“I don’t want drivers to break traffic laws but this is literally Jorjor Whale!” Truly a perfect encapsulation of the white “leftist” mindset - endless idealizing about a perfect world and endless contempt of any attempt to actually get there. They simply cannot comprehend the idea of a political leader actually doing something.
I guess they would have preferred the American traffic enforcement method of just summarily executing people? Or maybe it’s just the standard cracker entitlement of doing whatever the fuck you want and if anybody stops you that’s an egregious attack on muh freedoms. Nothing more than anti-bedtime contrarianism.
Most Chinese netizens have expressed gratitude for local governments finally getting their acts together and cleaning up the traffic mess.
White “leftists” are the most intellectually dishonest people to ever walk the earth. And morally dishonest too of course, but that’s another discussion.
But at least he filled in some potholes!