Daphne Muse
Walter Rodney: Historian, Revolutionary, Culinary Wizard and Iconic Bid Whist Player
In his chapter on “The Question of Economy” from his book Afrotropic, Senegalese professor of economics, writer, and philosopher Felwine Sarr notes with unbridled clarity…
The way in which the questions of economy have been envisioned on the continent is symptomatic of the general form of discourses about Africa. The economy has been analyzed through comparison and particularly in terms of deviation. When economists sought to understand the determining factors of economic growth in African countries, they focused their examination on the causes of an absence of growth and, above all on the difference in the level of wealth. Compared to countries considered as developed. The second characteristic is the short-term analysis, or more precisely, what I call thought from the trough of the wave. A certain economic historiography only thinks about the continent going back to the 1960s, the period when many African countries gained independence sometimes it goes back to colonization, with the slave trade being its most distant temporal horizon. In either case, this is where things get lost in the fog. From this point of view there is no economic history outside of the specific moments chosen as points of reference. A longer-term economic history of the African continent reveals a complex trajectory and allows us to reposition these stylized facts within a larger perspective.
His work took me right to a what would Walter Rodney say moment. Although one did not simply have a moment with Walter. He invited you to the table in search of the analysis that could translate across class divides so that everyone from “Pookie” to freedom fighters and national leaders could engage with him around the depth and breadth of his intellect and ideas. I often think about what Walter would say about these times. How would he rise to the daunting challenges brought on by those working vigilantly to set new traps of oppression and the many millions who are fighting at the cellular level of our beings to build and rebuild Black futures that divest us from the enslavement of the greatest Ponzi scheme ever put on the table: “crapitalism?” The depth and precision of his analysis are so essential to navigating the economic deprivation still ravaging so much of Africa, despite the wealth of minerals and minds. I think he would be fascinated by the contemporary technologies being developed on the Continent and maybe even be engaged in creating a platform or app or two himself.
I first came to know his work while managing the now legendary Washington, DC bookstore and cultural hub Drum and Spear. His 1969 book Groundings with My Brothers provided a solid clarifying lens on working-class Black Power and took me further into reading the works of other West Indian thinkers, writers, and historians who were calling out colonialism, neo-colonialism, and all its related iterations including author and scholar CLR James, novelist critic and philosopher Sylvia Wynter and former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley.
Along with being a bookseller and cultural broker, I was about to become a courier of history. On my way to spend time brainstorming on matters related to Drum and Spear, I stopped in London for two weeks to discuss the growing relationship with Jessica Huntley and her husband Eric Huntley founders and owners of the London-based Bogle L’Overture Bookshop and Publishing Company. They entrusted me with delivering the manuscript for How Europe Underdeveloped Africa to Walter. My friends Jennifer Lawson, Courtland Cox, and Charlie Cobb had asked me to come to Dar Es Salaam where they were then working and living to brainstorm further about a Drum and Spear Bookstore and Education Center in Dar. I also was charged with quenching their cultural thirsts for Marvin Gaye, Aretha, Gil Scott Heron, and the beats of bop. En route to Dar from London and a weeklong stopover in Paris, I began reading the manuscript. Upon landing for a stopover in Djibouti for a few hours, I realized I was reading something that elevated and reframed the thinking and discussions around a post-colonial political, cultural, and economic emergence of Africa. He clearly addressed Africa as underdeveloped for the trajectory and reality of its development had been reframed by colonizers as though the major contributions Africa had made to the global economy for centuries were summarily dismissed. He argued that the unjust distribution of wealth played a key role.
Upon delivering the manuscript to Walter, he invited me to sit with him and provide comments. I was shaken and mustered all the brain cells I could to rise to the occasion. Walter was so adept at mapping his ideas and solidifying his thinking with illuminating details and setting them in a global context. He never succumbed to the anesthesia of fear and was historically and intellectually reinforced by a remarkable cadre of deep thinkers who rose from the shores of the Caribbean including CLR James, Sylvia Wynter, Maurice Bishop, and Claudia Jones.
I came to realize he valued the voices beyond the usual cadre of scholars. Recently, I found several pages of my notes from the manuscript, pages from it, and a stash of correspondence from Pat in my archive of more than 5,000 letters documenting Black lives and cultures across the Diaspora.
Along with working on the manuscript, I got to spend time with Pat, and their children Shaka, and Kanini; Asha had yet to be born.
Walter also published two children’s books that were to be part of a series of five: Lakshmi, Out of India, and Kofi Baadu, Out of Africa. They told the story of indentureship and slavery to emancipation, with the characters telling their stories of the involuntary journey to Guyana. He was as committed to teaching children about the complex multi-ethnic history of Guyana and having people understand that Ghana and Guyana were two different countries on two different continents both of which were impacted deeply by the slave trade but with histories that went beyond that.
When Walter spent time in the Bay Area in the early seventies, I recall a legendary Bid Whist game that took place at the home of Ernest Wilson and Francille Wilson. He quite ceremoniously appointed me his Bid Whist partner and we threw down back-to-back “Boston’s” throughout one evening. Walter also was an amazing cook and his Metemgee and Pepper Pot were legendary. I long for one more legendary, the smack-talking game of Bid Whist with Walter, a toast to the struggle with a pour of Demerara Rum and the aroma of a pot of Metemgee simmering on the stove.
His assassination resonated so deeply across my heart for a decade earlier like Walter another man with a marvelous mind, Ralph Featherstone also was assassinated in a car bomb explosion. But the richness of his brilliance and legacy of his unwavering commitment to liberation continue to serve as a beacon for my way forward in my writing, teaching, cultural practices, and activism.
The people of Guyana can now honor his legacy without fear and scholars and authors including Robin D.G. Kelly and Guyanese historian Russell Rickford are among a cadre of scholars, journalists, and activists who keep the depth of Walter’s work at the table. Pat remains a cherished friend and she, her children, and supporters around the world continue to honor his vision through the Walter Rodney Foundation, where his legacy remains at the forefront for emerging scholars, activists, and those committed to the Africa Walter envisioned through his bold and clarifying work.
Daphne Muse is a writer, cultural broker, and the Inaugural Elder-in-Residence for the Black Studies Collaboratory in Abolitionist Democracy in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. She writes about, and documents Black lives and cultures while residing at her Oasis in the Diaspora in Brentwood, California.