This is my memory of Walter. This was the chant of the crowd at a meeting at Dutchies Boat landing, Wismar, the year, 1978. Few people at Wismar had heard the name Walter Rodney before now, but once they got to know the man, they took an instant liking to him. I knew him by name only. I was still a teenager at school when one 'good' afternoon just after four thirty, a small crowd assembled to listen to speakers from Georgetown talk about The Organisation For Bread And Justice.

Walter looked simple, rather down to earth. In those days little boys and girls grew up thinking that people who wore glasses were bright, brilliant. And Walter looked like one with his pair of spectacles. His Afro hair suited his small frame. This was the seventies and Black Power was the talk.

Though the contents of that first meeting elude me now, I was bought. So were the others. This brother could talk. We called him Walter as though we knew him for years, and he responded in kind. I remember asking myself how could a young man be so brilliant; at what age did he receive his doctorate? I vowed silently to be like him, brilliant, revolutionary. Not long after I was marching in the streets shouting to the top of my voice ‘Peoples Power No Dictator!’ in opposition to the Burnham regime. 

Here are three poems from my unpublished manuscript Sardines & Saltwater. They are from a section called Groundings...and are dedicated to the eminent historian Walter Rodney who was assassinated in June 1980.

(I)

By Bomb

Walking talking
bomb
is held up in car

A button gets pushed

Bomb talks
to Walter
& pronounce
him

dead.


(II)

And I heard
the loud boom
like an explosion
in war time
and thought it was
lot 12 Camp Street
that all those people
in there
just dead and gone
not knowing that it was you
on Dur/Ban way
frag/men/ted like the
caribbean
i.lands.


(III)

All men must die
so the story goes
I'm no heretic
life is a season of
the inevitable
the victory comes after.