WARStories

The Walter Rodney Story plus Q & A 

Sat 16 July 3-6pm

Roxy Bar & Screen

128-132 Borough High Street, London SE1 1LB (Next to Sainsburys)

Tube: London Bridge. Buses 21,35,40,133, 343 

Tkts: £7.00 in advance £9.00 on the door   

Advance tickets here http://www.wegottickets.com/event/124779

See trailer here http://www.youtube.com/blackhistorywalks#p/u/6/yF5PHRPe2Kc

 

W.A.R Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney takes a straightforward, chronological approach to Rodney's life in Guyana, Jamaica, Tanzania and England, footage of various physical locations interspersed with interviews of persons who knew and worked with him, as well as his daughter Asha. Michael O. West said that Rodney was under surveillance almost all his adult life and there are also interviews with researchers Horace Campbell and Robert Hill, among others.

Substantial treatment is given to Rodney's political activities in Guyana in the final few years of his life in which he formed the Working People's Alliance. Included in those years was his 1979 trial for arson,  after two government buildings were razed.

Rodney was killed on June 13, 1980, when a bomb disguised as a walkie talkie, given to him by Sergeant Gregory Smith of the Guyana Defence Force, exploded in a car in which he was being driven by his brother Donald Rodney.

It is said "there is so much ignorance in the country. You ask young people about Walter Rodney and they don't know". This is a chance to find out

Interviews with, Horace Campbell, Ph.D., professor of African-American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York; Rupert Roopnaraine, Ph.D., principal of the Critchlow Labor College, Georgetown, Guyana; Clive Thomas, Ph.D., professor of Political Science, University of Alaska Southeast; Issa Shivji, Ph.D., professor of Law, University of Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania;  the late professor Haroub Othman, Ph.D., University of Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania; and the late Vice-Chancellor Emeritus Rex Nettleford, Ph.D., professor of Cultural Studies, University of the West Indies, at Mona, Jamaica. Also included among the list of those interviewed were poets, U.S. poet and playwright Amiri Baraka and Working Peoples Alliance (WPA) member Eusi Kwayana, writers, and activists including, Karen DeSouza and Andaiye, members of the WPA, the political party in Guyana to which Rodney belonged. Manning Marable Malcolm X biographer ,Asha Rodney (daughter) and Donald Rodney (brother

 

A Rod Westmaas and www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk production. Proceeds from the screening to be donated to the Queen's College of Guyana Association (UK) which raises funds throughout the year to enrich the lives and educational experience of current students at the Queen's College of Guyana, Walter Rodney's old school.