The Past is Not Our Future: Walter Rodney's Student Years

Synopsis

This documentary introduces Rodney, the young UWI student, honing his intellect in the turbulent years of Caribbean development which exposed him to the euphoria of the Cuban revolution, the beguiling prospect of the Federation of the West Indies, Jamaica's independence and the Pan-African ideology of Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore in Ghana. His commitment to the students he taught later in the Department of History at Mona, the Rastafari community and the poor and powerless in Kingston resulted in his being banned by the government of Hugh Shearer from re-entering Jamaica in after attending a writers' conference in Canada in 1968 which led to public protests on the streets of Kingston.