Walter Rodney

Walter Rodney was born in Georgetown, Guyana on March 23, 1942. His was a working class family-his father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress. After attending primary school, he won an open exhibition scholarship to attend Queens College as one of the early working-class beneficiaries of concessions made in the filed of education by the ruling class in Guyana to the new nationalism that gripped the country in the early 1950s.

While at Queens College young Rodney excelled academically, as well as in the fields of athletics and debating. In 1960, he won an open scholarship to further his studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He graduated with a first-class honors degree in history in 1963 and. he won an open scholarship to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In 1966, at the age of 24 he was awarded a Ph.D. with honors in African History.

His doctoral research on slavery on the Upper Guinea Coast was the result of long meticulous work on the records of Portuguese merchants both in England and in Portugal. In the process he learned Portuguese and Spanish which along with the French he had learned at Queens College made him somewhat of a linguist.

In 1970, his Ph.D dissertation was published by Oxford University Press under the title, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800. This work was to set a trend for Rodney in both challenging the assumptions of western historians about African history and setting new standards for looking at the history of oppressed peoples. According to Horace Campbell "This work was path-breaking in the way in which it analyzed the impact of slavery on the communities and the interrelationship between societies of the region and on the ecology of the region."

Walter took up his first teaching appointment in Tanzania before returning to his alma mater, the University of the West Indies, in 1968. This was a period of great political activity in the Caribbean as the countries begun their post colonial journey. But it was the Black Power Movement that caught Walter's imagination.

Some new voices had begun to question the direction of the post-independence governments, in particular their attitude to the plight of the downpressed. The issue of empowerment for the black and brown poor of the region was being debated among the progressive intellectuals. Rodney, who from very early on had rejected the authoritarian role of the middle class political elite in the Caribbean, was central to this debate. He, however, did not confine his activities to the university campus. He took his message of Black Liberation to the gullies of Jamaica. In particular he shared his knowledge of African history with one of the most rejected section of the Jamaican society-the Rastafarians.

Walter had shown an interest in political activism ever since he was a student in Jamaica and England. Horace Campbell reports that while at UWI Walter "was active in student politics and campaigned extensively in 1961 in the Jamaica Referendum on the West Indian Federation." While studying in London, Walter participated in discussion circles, spoke at the famous Hyde Park and, participated in a symposium on Guyana in 1965. It was during this period that Walter came into contact with the legendary CLR James and was one of his most devoted students.

By the summer of 1968 Rodney's "groundings with the working poor of Jamaica had begun to attract the attention of the government. So, when he attended a Black Writers' Conference in Montreal, Canada, in October 1968, the Hugh Shearer-led Jamaican Labor Party Government banned him from re-entering the country. This action sparked widespread riots and revolts in Kingston in which several people were killed and injured by the police and security forces, and millions of dollars worth of property destroyed.. Rodney's encounters with the Rastafarians were published in a pamphlet entitled "Grounding with My Brothers," that became a bible for the Caribbean Black Power Movement.

Having been expelled from Jamaica, Walter returned to Tanzania after a short stay in Cuba.. There he lectured from 1968 to 1974 and continued his groundings in Tanzania and other parts of Africa. This was the period of the African liberation struggles and Walter, who fervently believed that the intellectual should make his or her skills available for the struggles and emancipation of the people, became deeply involved.. It was from partly from these activities that his second major work, and his best known --How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - emerged. It was published by Bogle-L'Ouverture, in London, in conjunction with Tanzanian Publishing House in 1972.

This Tanzanian period was perhaps the most important in the formation of Rodney's ideas. According to Horace Campbell "Here he was at the forefront of establishing an intellectual tradition which still today makes Dar es Salaam one of the centers of discussion of African politics and history. Out of he dialogue, discussions and study groups he deepened the Marxist tradition with respect to African politics, class struggle, the race question, African history and the role of the exploited in social change. It was within the context of these discussions that the book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was written."

Campbell also reports that " In he same period, he wrote the critical articles on Tanzanian Ujamaa, imperialism, on underdevelopment, and the problems of state and class formation in Africa. Many of his articles which were written in Tanzania appeared in Maji Maji, the discussion journal of the TANU Youth League at the University. He worked in the Tanzanian archives on the question of forced labor, the policing of the countryside and the colonial economy. This work-- " World War II and the Tanzanian Economy"-- was later published as a monograph by Cornell University in 1976".

Rodney also developed a reputation as a Pan-Africanist theoretician and spokes person. Campbell says that "In Tanzania he developed close political relationships with those who were struggling to change the external control of Africa He was very close to some of the leaders of liberation movements in Africa and also to political leaders of popular organizations of independent territories. Together with other Pan-Africanists he participated in discussing leading up to the Sixth Pan-African Congress, held in Tanzania, 1974. Before the Congress he wrote a piece: "Towards the Sixth Pan-African Congress: Aspects of the International Class Struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America."

In 1974, Walter returned to Guyana to take up an appointment as Professor of History at the University of Guyana, but the government rescinded the appointment. But Rodney remained in Guyana, joined the newly formed political group, the Working People's Alliance. Between 1974 and his assassination in 1980, he emerged as the leading figure in the resistance movement against the increasingly authoritarian PNC government. He give public and private talks all over the country that served to engender a new political consciousness in the country. During this period he developed his ideas on the self emancipation of the working people, People's Power, and multiracial democracy.

On July 11, 1979, Walter, together with seven others, was arrested following the burning down of two government offices. He, along with Drs Rupert Roopnarine and Omawale, was later charged with arson. From that period up to the time of his murder, he was constantly persecuted and harassed and at least on one occasion, an attempt was made to kill him. Finally, on the evening of June 13, 1980, he was assassinated by a bomb in the middle of Georgetown..

Walter was married to Dr Patricia Rodney and the union bore three children- Shaka, Kanini and Asha.

Barack Obama: How I am still haunted by my father
By BARACK OBAMA - More by this author »

Last updated at 01:24am on 8th February 2008



Rise: Will Obama be the next U.S. President?
A few months after my 21st birthday, a stranger called to give me the news.


I was living in New York at the time, in a small apartment with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work.



The telephone line was thick with static.

"Barry? Barry, is this you? This is your Aunt Jane. In Nairobi. Can you hear me? Listen Barry, your father is dead. He was killed in a car accident."


That was all. The line cut off, and I sat down on the couch, smelling fried eggs burn in the kitchen, staring at cracks in the plaster, trying to measure my loss.

At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man.

He had left my mother and myself in Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old.

As a child, I knew him only through the stories that my mother and grandparents told.

They all had their favourites, each one seamless, burnished smooth from repeated use.

After each telling the stories would be packed away, like the few photographs of my father that remained in the house - old black and white studio prints that I might run across while rummaging through the closets in search of Christmas ornaments.

At the point where my own memories begin, my mother had already begun a courtship with the man who would become her second husband, and I sensed without explanation why the photographs had to be stored away.

But once in a while, sitting on the floor with my mother, the smell of dust and mothballs rising from the crumbling album, I would stare at my father's likeness and listen.

He was an African, I would learn, a Kenyan of the Luo tribe, born on the shores of Lake Victoria.

Scroll down for more...


Obama with his mother Ann and sister Maya

My father grew up herding his father's goats and attending the local school, set up by the British colonial administration, where he had shown great promise.

He eventually won a scholarship to study in Nairobi, and then was selected to attend university in the United States, being sent forth to master Western technology and bring it back to forge a new, modern Africa.

In 1959, at the age of 23, he arrived at the University of Hawaii as that institution's first African student. He studied econometrics, and graduated in three years at the top of his class.

In a Russian language course, he met an awkward, shy American girl, only 18, and they fell in love. The girl's parents, wary at first, were won over by his charm and intellect.

The young couple married, and she bore them a son. He won another scholarship to pursue his PhD at Harvard, but not the money to take his new family with him - or so I was told. A separation occurred, and he returned to Africa to fulfil his promise to the continent.

There the album would close, and I would wander off content, swaddled in a tale that placed me in the centre of a vast and orderly universe.

That my father looked nothing like the people around me - that he was black as pitch, my mother as white as milk - barely registered in my mind.

There was only one problem: my father was missing. Nothing my mother or grandparents told me could obviate that single, unassailable fact. Their stories didn't tell me why he had left. They couldn't describe what it might have been like if he had stayed.



Obama's father was killed in a car accident in Nairobi
Later, I'd become troubled by questions. Why didn't my father return? But at the age of five or six, I was satisfied to leave these distant mysteries intact.

I was too young to realise that I was supposed to have a live-in father, just as I was too young to know that I needed a race.

In 1960, the year that my parents were married, miscegenation - the interbreeding of races - was still described a felony in over half the states in the U.S.

In many parts of the South, my father could have been strung up a tree for merely looking at my mother the wrong way. Even in the more sophisticated northern cities, the hostile stares and whispers might have driven a woman in my mother's predicament into a backalley abortion.

Between the ages of six and ten, I lived in Indonesia where my mother had moved with her second husband.

When I was sent back to my grandparents in Hawaii for my education, I was greeted at school with a loud hoot from other pupils, like the sound of a monkey. A ruddy-faced boy asked me if my father ate people.

One day, I came across a picture in Life magazine of a black man who had tried to peel off his skin. He had received a chemical treatment, which went wrong, leaving him an uneven, ghostly hue.

I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation.

Perhaps it comes sooner for most - the parent's warning not to cross the boundaries of a particular neighbourhood, or the frustration of not having hair like Barbie no matter how long you tease and comb, or the tale of a father's humiliation at the hands of an employer or a cop, overheard while you're supposed to be asleep.

Maybe it's easier for a child to receive the bad news in small doses, allowing for a system of defences to be built up - although I suspect I was one of the luckier ones, having been given a stretch of childhood free from self-doubt.

Scroll down for more...


Promise: Obama's parents separated when he was just a baby


When I was ten, my father came back from Africa to visit us for Christmas. After a week of my father in the flesh, I decided that I preferred his more distant image, an image I could alter on a whim - or ignore when convenient. If my father hadn't exactly disappointed me, he remained something unknown, something volatile and vaguely threatening.

Like my mother, he had remarried, and I now had five brothers and one sister living in Kenya. There was so much to tell, so much explaining to do.

And yet when I reach back into my memory for the words of my father, the small interactions or conversations we might have had, they seem irretrievably lost.

I'm left with mostly images that appear and die off in my mind like distant sounds.

We stand together in front of the Christmas tree and pose for pictures, the only ones I have of us together, me holding an orange basketball, his gift to me, him showing off the tie I've bought him. He stayed a month, then he was gone.

The next five years were a placid time marked by the usual rites and rituals that America expects from its children, part-time jobs at the burger chain, acne and driving tests.


My mother separated from her Indonesian husband, Lolo, and returned to Hawaii with my sister, Maya, and I moved in with her.

I was also engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America. No one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant.

The feeling that something wasn't quite right stayed with me, a warning that sounded whenever a white girl mentioned in the middle of conversation how much she liked Stevie Wonder, or when a woman in the supermarket asked me if I played basketball.

Where did I fit in? I grew tired of trying to untangle a mess that wasn't of my making.

Scroll down for more...


Through the years: Obama plays as a child

I learned not to care. Marijuana helped, and booze, maybe a little cocaine when you could afford it.

Not heroin, though - Micky, my potential initiator, had been just a little too eager for me to go through with that. Said he could do it blindfolded, but he was shaking like a faulty engine when he said it.

Maybe he was just cold, we were standing in a meat freezer in the back of the deli where he worked.

But he didn't look like he was shaking from the cold. Looked more like he was sweating, his face shiny and tight. He had pulled out the needle and the tubing, and I looked at him standing there, surrounded by big slabs of salami and roast beef, and right then an image popped into my head of an air bubble, shiny and round like a pearl, rolling quietly through a vein and stopping my heart.

Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man.

The high could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bull**** and cheap moralism.

That's how it had seemed to me then, anyway. At the start of my senior year in high school, my mother marched into my room. My friend Pablo had been arrested.

I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn't do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned.

People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved - such a pleasant surprise to find a wellmannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.

Except my mother hadn't looked satisfied. She had just sat there, studying my eyes, her face as grim as a hearse.

"Don't you think you're being a little casual about your future?" she said.

"One of your friends was just arrested for drug possession. Your grades are slipping. You haven't even started on your college applications."

My mother's worst fears didn't come to pass. In the end, I graduated without mishap, was accepted into several respectable schools, and settled on Occidental College in Los Angeles. I would go on to read law at Harvard.

Eventually, my mother - who died of ovarian cancer in 1995 - would tell me the truth about what had happened between her and my father.

"It wasn't your father's fault that he left, you know," she said.

"I divorced him. When we got married, your grandparents weren't happy with the idea, but came to feel it was the right thing to do.

"Then Barack's father - your grandfather Hussein - wrote Gramps this long, nasty letter saying that he didn't approve of the marriage. He didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman, he said. Well you can imagine how Gramps reacted to that.

"And then there was a problem with your father's first wife. He had told me that they were separated. But it was a village wedding, so there was no legal document that could show a divorce. She paused.

"Even then, it might have worked out. He received two scholarships, one in New York, which paid enough to support all three of us.

"Harvard had just agreed to pay tuition.

"'How can I refuse the best education?' he told me. That's all he could think about, proving that he was the best."

She stopped and laughed to herself.

"Did I ever tell you that he was late for our first date? He asked me to meet him in front of the university library at 1pm. When I got there he hadn't arrived. It was a nice day, so I laid out on one of the benches, and fell asleep.

"Well an hour later - an hour! - he shows up with a couple of his friends. I woke up and heard your father saying, serious as can be: 'You see, gentlemen. I told you that she was a fine girl, and that she would wait for me.'"

She saw my father as everyone hopes that at least one other person might see him. She had tried to help me, his son, see him in the same way.

And it was the look on her face that day that I would remember when a few months later, in 1982, I called to tell her that my father had died and heard her cry out over the distance.

I didn't go to the funeral, but later I would go to Kenya to meet the other half of my family. There, I would discover that after falling foul of the government and losing his job in the Ministry of Tourism, my father had descended into drink.

All my life, I had carried a single image of my father, one that I had sometimes rebelled against but had never questioned, one that I had later tried to take as my own.

The brilliant scholar, the generous friend, the upstanding leader - my father had been all of those things.

All those things and more, because except for that one brief visit in Hawaii, he had never been present to foil the image.

The fantasy of my father had at least kept me from despair. Now he was dead, truly. He could no longer tell me how to live.

A year after his death, I dreamt of him.

"Barack. I always wanted to tell you how much I love you," he said.

He seemed small in my arms now, the size of a boy. I awoke still weeping, my first real tears for him. I remembered his only visit, the basketball he had given me and how he had taught me to dance.

And I realised, perhaps for the first time, how even in his absence his strong image had given me some bulwark on which to grow up, an image to live up to, or disappoint.

• Extracted and adapted by Zoe Brennan from Dreams From My Father: A Story Of Race And Inheritance by Barack Obama (Canongate).

A TRIBUTE TO DR. IVAN VAN SERTIMA

By RUNOKO RASHIDI


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We have come to reclaim the house of history. We are dedicated to the revision of the role of the African in the world's great civilizations, the contribution of Africa to the achievement of man in the arts and sciences. We shall emphasize what Africa has given to the world, not what it has lost."

--Ivan Van Sertima

With absolute certainty it can stated that, due to his consistent and unrelenting scholarship over the past twenty-five years in the rewriting of African history and the reconstruction of the African's place in world history, particularly in the field of the African presence in ancient America, Ivan Van Sertima has cemented his position as one of our greatest living scholars. Indeed, during this turbulent and exciting period, he has been in the vanguard of those scholars fighting to place African history in a new light. Simply put, Van Sertima's clarion call has been: "We shall follow the trail of the African in Europe, in Asia, and in every corner of the New World, seeking to set the record straight. This is no romantic exploration of antiquities. It is a search for roots."

Ivan Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, Guyana, South America on January 26, 1935. He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University where he graduated with honors. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a Press and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information Services. During the decade of the 1960s, he broadcasted weekly from Britain to both Africa and the Caribbean. He came to the United States in 1970, where he completed his post graduate studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Dr. Van Sertima began his teaching career as an instructor at Rutgers in 1972, and he is now Professor of African studies in the Department of Africana Studies.

Van Sertima is a literary critic, a linguist, and an anthropologist, and has made a name for himself in all three fields. As a linguist, he is the compiler of the Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms, based on his field word in Tanzania, East Africa in 1967. As a literary critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He is also the author of several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain, and the United States. He was recognized for his work in this field by being requested by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976 to 1980.

The cornerstone of Dr. Van Sertima's legacy will probably be his authorship of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America. According to Van Sertima:

"The African presence in America before Columbus is of importance not only to African and American history, but to the history of world civilizations. The African presence is proven by stone heads, terra cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and inscriptions, by oral traditions and documented history, by botanical, linguistic and cultural data."

They Came Before Columbus is a groundbreaking historical work and a literary hallmark. The ideas and themes presented in They Came Before Columbus were not novel. Indeed, many people had written on the African presence in pre-Columbian America before Van Sertima, notably Leo Wiener, Kofi Wangara, R.A. Jairazbhoy, Legrand H. Clegg II, and Floyd W. Hayes III, but Van Sertima's book was the first such work of its type written by an African to comprehensively address the subject. In his own words, Van Sertima notes that:

"What I have sought to do in this book, therefore, is to present the whole picture emerging from these disciplines, all the facts that are now known about the links between Africa and America in pre-Columbian times."

They Came Before Columbus has now gone through more than twenty printings. It was published in French in 1981, and in the same year was awarded the Clarence L. Holt Prize, a prize awarded every two years "for a work of excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the the cultural heritage of Africa and the African diaspora." In 1979 Dr. Chancellor Williams received the Clarence L. Holte prize for the Destruction of Black Civilization.

Following upon the publication of They Came Before Columbus, and equally momentous, in 1979 Dr. Van Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations which quickly gained "a reputation for excellence and uniqueness among historical and anthropological journals. It is recognized as a valuable information source for both the layman and student." The late St. Clair Drake described the Journal of African Civilizations as "one of the most important events in the development of research and publication from the perspective of Pan-African scholarship." Van Sertima set the tone early on when he stated that:

"The destruction of African high-cultures after the massive and continuous invasions of Europe left many Africans surviving on the periphery or outer ring of what constituted the best in African civilizations. New facts that challenge this image create such consternation and incredulity that an extraordinarily emotional campaign is mounted by some of the most respected voices in the scientific establishment to explain away the new data.

That drift of dynastic Egypt from Africa has now dramatically slowed. Recent archeological finds have caught up with the mythmakers. More and more the history of Africa is being reconstructed upon the basis of hard, objective data rather than upon the self-serving speculations and racist theories about the black barbarians."

Since 1979 the Journal of African Civilizations has published works by and about many of the world's finest Africanist scholars in a series of magnificent anthologies. These works include Blacks in Science, Nile Valley Civilizations, African Presence in Early America, Black Women in Antiquity, Egypt Revisited, Egypt: Child of Africa, African Presence in Early Europe, Golden Age of the Moor, African Presence in the Art of the Americas, Great Black Leaders, Great African Thinkers (coedited with Larry Obadele Williams), and African Presence in Early Asia (coedited with Runoko Rashidi). In 1998 Transaction Press produced produced Van Sertima's newest text--Early America Revisited--the definitive statement on the subject.

On July 7, 1987 Dr. Van Sertima appeared before a Congressional Committee to challenge the Columbus myth. In November 1991 he defended his thesis in an address to the Smithsonian Institute. In this arena Ivan Van Sertima has emerged as an undefeated champion.

SOURCES:
They Came Before Columbus and Early Early America Revisited, by Ivan Van Sertima

Ambassador John Carter 1918-2005

John Carter founded the United Democratic Party in 1952.

John Carter, was Guyana's first ambassador to the United States and a key figure in the pre- independence turmoil of what was, before 1966, British Guiana.

In 1952, Mr. Carter founded the United Democratic Party, which vied for power over the years in British Guiana with the leftist People's Progressive Party.

In 1953, six months after the People's Progressive Party won a landslide election, British Guiana's colonial governor suspended the constitution, dismissed the PPP governor and installed an interim government. Throughout the 1950s, the Cold War powers, fearing the PPP's Marxist inclinations, felt compelled to meddle in the politics of the tiny South American nation, which, in effect, delayed independence.

In 1958, the United Democratic Party merged with the People's National Congress, led by Forbes Burnham, and Mr. Carter became the PNC's first chairman. Guyana became an independent nation May 26, 1966.

John Patrick Gregorio Carter was born in Cane Grove, a tiny, rural community on the eastern coast of Guyana's Demerara River. He grew up in Georgetown, the capital, where he starred at cricket and soccer.

In 1939, he left his native land for London, where he received bachelor of arts and bachelor of laws degrees from the University of London.

He became the general secretary of the League of Coloured Peoples, an organization that attempted to address discrimination against Africans in England.

Every Saturday night during World War II, he delivered a BBC radio broadcast that began: "This is London calling the West Indies." A nephew, Vibert Lampkin, now a judge in Ontario, Canada, recalled that Mr. Carter's mother would hear that familiar, faraway voice and breathe a sigh of relief. "Well, at least I know my son is still alive," she would say. Only after the war did her son reveal that the broadcasts were recorded days in advance.

He returned to his homeland in 1945 and opened a law practice in Georgetown. In 1948, he was elected to the legislature, at 29 the youngest member of the body. For the next two decades, he was deeply involved in Guyanese politics.

In 1962 he became a member of the Queen's Council, the colony's highest court. From 1962 to 1966, he also was pro-chancellor of the University of Guyana.

He became Guyana's ambassador to the United States in 1966. That year, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. He also was appointed Guyana's permanent representative to the United Nations and high commissioner to Canada, posts he held from 1966 to 1970.

In 1968, he served as vice chairman of the U.N. General Assembly during its 23rd session.

In 1970, he was appointed high commissioner to the Court of St. James's in Britain, with concurrent accreditations as ambassador to several other European nations, as well as the Soviet Union and India. Between 1970 and 1975, he was chairman of the Commonwealth Sanctions Committee, which helped formulate the British Commonwealth's policy on Zimbabwe's unilateral declaration of independence and South Africa's apartheid.

In 1976, he served as ambassador to the People's Republic of China, with concurrent accreditations as ambassador to Japan and North Korea. He also served as a delegate and as head of special missions to Australia, Singapore, Zambia, Tanzania and several other African nations.

In 1981, he was appointed high commissioner to Jamaica, where he served until his retirement from the diplomatic corps in 1983.

He lived in Bethesda from his retirement until his death, although he made frequent visits to Guyana. He also worked as a consultant to Golden Star Resources Ltd., a Canadian mining company with interests in Guyana.

Mr. Carter was a member of Chevy Chase United Methodist Church.

His marriage to Dorothy Frasier ended in divorce. He was married to Lady Sarah Lou Carter for 45 years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dove,

Kwaku, this is all that I could pull up for you.. sorry... and it was his upon his death that something was posted here about her...

Lady Sarah Lou Carter - Birthday Reunion photos


Celebrating her birthday in 2003 with her family.

Derek Luke and his wife Sophia.

Guyana Roots Childhood and Family:

Derek Luke (born April 24, 1974) is an American actor. He won the Independent Spirit Award for his big-screen debut performance in the 2002 film Antwone Fisher, directed and produced by Denzel Washington.

Luke was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Marjorie Dixon, a pianist, and Maurice Luke, who is a native of Georgetown, Guyana and a former actor. He has two brothers, Daniel (born in 1982) and Maurice (born in 1972), and he is a graduate of Linden High School in Linden, New Jersey. He throws right-handed, but writes left-handed. Luke was discovered while working at the Studio Emporium gift shop on the Sony studio lot and given the Fisher role, a story which is still repeated on the Sony studio tour.

As a child, Derek had showed a great passion toward acting. When he was only four, little Derek asked his mother to let him become an actor. Seventeen years later, he made his way to California to help fulfill his childhood's dream to be a performer.

Growing up in Jersey City, New Jersey, Derek attended Jersey State College in New Jersey. At age 24, in 1998, Luke happily married his girlfriend, actress/singer Sophia Adella Hernandez. Their first child was born in March 2007 and the couple currently resides in their home in Pasadena.

Career:

A native of New Jersey, Derek Luke always wanted to become an actor since childhood. Arriving at Los Angeles in 1995, Jersey State College graduate Luke started his career as a guide for Audiences Unlimited who helps viewers discover seats to various sitcom tapings on the Universal Studios lot, and then as a salesclerk on the Sony Pictures lot. While on the Sony lot, he met Antwone Fisher, a former Sony Pictures security guard who had recently become a screenwriter. Knowing that a film based on Fisher's life was being developed, Luke decided to join the auditions. He was good enough to earn a call back, but the film was put on hold due to the hectic schedule of the director, actor Denzel Washington.

Luke then began his acting training, attending some drama lessons to perfect his skills. In 1999, he finally broke into television on "The King of Queens," where he appeared as an orderly. He followed it up with another guest appearance on an episode of "Moesha" (2002).

In 2001, Luke retried his luck when the auditions for the Antwone Fisher movie were being held once again. His efforts blossomed when Luke was eventually hired to star in the title role of Denzel Washington's directorial debut Antwone Fisher (2002). Produced by Todd Black, the film gave opportunities for Luke to display his potential as the true-life black sailor who has to overcome his anger over the traumas of his youth. Luke's debut performance was critically applauded, and he was awarded such awards as an Independent Spirit for Best Male Lead, two Black Reels in the categories of Best Actor and Best Breakthrough Performance, a National Board of Review for Best Breakthrough Performance and a Golden Satellite for Outstanding New Talent. He also received a Breakthrough Male Performance nomination at the MTV Movie Award. Luke added his impressive achievement with a 2003 BET for Favorite Actor.

Following the huge success, the young actor landed the starring role of Bobby, the loving and supportive boyfriend of Katie Holmes' April Burns in the independent film Pieces of April (2003), penned and helmed by Sundance Festival fave Peter Hedges.
Luke next was cast opposite Laurence Fishburne, Orlando Jones, Lisa Bonet and Kid Rock in Biker Boyz (2003). The action movie saw Luke play a rookie African American motorcycle street racer who expects to overwhelm the reigning champ. In 2004, he costarred opposite Tia Texada and Val Kilmer in the crime-thriller Spartan (2004), a film by David Mamet, and appeared in a football-themed based on H.G. Bissinger's book, Friday Night Lights (2004), starring Billy Bob Thornton and Lucas Black. In 2006, he can add the James Gartner-directed sport-based Glory Road, starring Josh Lucas, and the drama Hotstuff (2006), starring with Bonnie Mbuli and Tim Robbins.


Awards:

BET Award: Favorite Actor, 2003
Independent Spirit: Best Male Lead, Antwone Fisher, 2003
Black Reel: Theatrical - Best Actor, Antwone Fisher, 2003
Black Reel: Best Breakthrough Performance - Viewer's Choice, Antwone Fisher, 2003
National Board of Review: Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actor, Antwone Fisher, 2003
Golden Satellite: Special Achievement, Outstanding New Talent, 2003



Derek Luke will be the special guest in May 2008 of the Guyana Independence Celebration hosted in NYC by CARIBPR; the event featured Sean Patrick Thomas another actor of Guyanese heritage in marking Guyana's 40th Independence celebration last year.

What slavery did to Africa

To mark the start of Black History Month, a calculation of what the continent lost

Feb 03, 2008 04:30 AM
Louise Marie Diop-Maes
We know much about 16th century sub-Saharan Africa from surviving remains, archaeological excavations and written sources. There were integrated kingdoms and empires, with substantial cities (60,000 to 140,000 inhabitants) and significant towns (1,000 to 10,000); and less organized territories with large scattered populations. People practised agriculture, stock-rearing, hunting, fishing and crafts (metalworking, textiles, ceramics). They navigated along rivers and across lakes, trading over short and long distances, using their own currencies.
In the 14th century the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta praised the security and justice of the Mali empire. Until the arrival of firearms, the Arab slave trade was insignificant in relation to economic activity and population. At the beginning of the 16th century, Leo Africanus noted in his Description of Africa that the king of Borno conducted only one slaving expedition a year.

Everything changed when the Portuguese reached the area south of the Congo River and conquered Angola. They attacked and destroyed the main ports on the east coast, and overran Mozambique. Firearms enabled the Moroccans to destroy the Songhai empire in just nine years. Thousands were killed, or captured and reduced to slavery. The victors carried off men, animals, goods, precious objects.

Kingdoms and empires fragmented into principalities, which were forced to wage war to capture prisoners who could be traded for the rifles necessary for defence and attack. The resulting population movements provoked further confrontations, with refugee settlements, and the spread of a state of latent war to the heart of the continent. The number of raids increased: The Tunisian writer Muhammad al-Tunsy, who travelled to Darfur and Ouaddai (in modern Chad) at the beginning of the 19th century, reported that in the northeast of the Central African Republic they had reached 80 a year.

The social, economic, political and administrative fabric was damaged, then destroyed. Many people were forced to fend for themselves in defensive positions where food and water were hard to get. Living standards fell. The fate of those taken into slavery worsened. A parasitic social class of collaborators emerged: brokers, warders, caravaneers, interpreters and suppliers of provisions.

At first, rulers gave up only prisoners under sentence of death. But the Portuguese wanted more, and took them by force. Every year from 1575 to 1580, Paulo Dias de Novais, the first captain-governor of Angola, sent off an average of 12,000 captives.

Throughout the 17th and the 18th centuries, most European ship-owners participated in this profitable business. By the second half of the 18th century the numbers involved were enormous; excluding periods when England and France were at war, hundreds of ships transported more than 150,000 every year. The prevalent state of insecurity across much of Africa caused famine and encouraged indigenous and imported diseases, especially smallpox. As these became endemic, epidemics spread.

Africans were killed in raids or during the journey from the interior to the coast. They committed suicide or died resisting embarkation. They died because the disruption of existing political entities provoked further raids and internal wars. They died as populations fled from greedy slavers. They died of disease, and of hunger when their crops and supplies were destroyed. They were also killed by firearms, bad liquor, declining hygiene and the loss of inherited knowledge.

If the number transported is added to all those killed, the demographic deficit exceeds the number of viable births, itself in decline. The fall in population varied between regions. The decline accelerated from the end of the 17th century and by the middle of the 18th century it was widespread and rapid.

How great was the loss? In Africa, as in India, there are no baptismal records from the period, but we know from descriptions by explorers and travellers that in 19th century West Africa the largest towns contained no more than between 30,000 and 40,000 inhabitants. They were about a quarter of the size of the largest cities of the 16th century.

The same sources indicate even greater declines among the rural population and in the number of warriors that individual princes or chiefs could muster. But does this four-to-one ratio hold for all of black Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries? From Cape Palmas, on the modern frontier between the Ivory Coast and Liberia, to southern Angola, the losses were even greater. There were 2,000 dwellings in Gwato, the port of the kingdom of Benin (in modern Nigeria), when the Portuguese came; there were no more than 20 or 30 when 19th century explorers arrived. There was a similar reduction in the population of Angola. Parts of Chad remained quite densely populated until late in the century, with towns of 3,000 recorded in 1878.

In modern Sudan, depopulation began during the 1820s, when Pasha Muhammad Ali of Egypt conquered the country and took slaves. From the beginning of the 19th century, the impact of English settlers in South Africa, coming on top of the Boers, dramatically reduced the indigenous population. It seems reasonable to conclude that the population of black Africa in the 19th century was a third, or even a quarter, of what it had been 300 years before.

But are population estimates for the mid-19th century accurate? Colonial conquest (artillery against rifles), forced labour, the suppression of resistance, food shortages, diseases (indigenous and imported), and the continuing eastern slave trade all contributed to the decline of the population, which remained at about a third of its former level until 1930, when administrative and sanitary reforms began a slow reversal of the demographic trend.

This assessment is possible because the Europeans began to collect statistics. In 1948-49 a general, co-ordinated census was carried out right across sub-Saharan Africa. After adjustments for incomplete declarations, the approximate population was between 140 million and 145 million. Given the increase recorded between 1930 and 1948-49, it is possible to conclude that in 1930 the population was between 130 million and 135 million, two-thirds of the estimated approximate population of 200 million between 1870 and 1890. My research suggests that the population in the 16th century could have been at least 600 million (an average of about 30 people per square kilometre).

Between the mid-16th century and the mid-19th century, the sub-Saharan population fell by some 400 million. It is impossible to calculate what percentage was deported by sea or across the Sahel; numbers were falsified and many slaves were taken illegally, both before and after the trade was abolished. Sources and estimates indicate that official figures for the European trade should be increased by 50 per cent. Estimates for the Arab trade are problematic. But the total figure for the European and Arab trades should probably be between 25 and 40 million. This is highly controversial, but lower estimates fail to take into account the enormous level of falsification.

At least 90 per cent of total losses occurred within Africa as the cumulative, destructive effects, direct and indirect, of the simultaneous and intensifying trades created a permanent state of insecurity across the continent. The colonial conquest and occupation turned sub-Saharan Africa in on itself, culturally and economically, and made general and local reconstruction difficult. The population of black Africa has only returned to 16th century levels in the past decade, but distorted by the massive flow into capital cities.

The consequences of the slave trade have been damaging, and its scale is still underestimated.



Louise Marie Diop-Maes is a human geographer and author of Afrique noire, démographie, sol et histoire. The article was translated from French by Donald Hounam.

Vernon Jordan Jr., a strong Black presence!

*Vernon E. Jordan Jr. was born on August 15 in 1935. He is an African-American lawyer and civil rights leader.

From Atlanta, Georgia his father was a mail clerk in the U. S. Army and his mother ran a local catering service. Jordan was educated in the Atlanta public schools and graduated from DePauw University in 1957. He attended the Howard University Law School where he received the J.D. in 1960. After graduation returning home to practice law he became involved in a significant civil rights case of that era.

Jordan and two other Atlanta attorneys sued the University of Georgia for failing to admit black students. The suit, on behalf of Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, resulted in a federal court order directing their admission. Jordan received national attention in 1961 when he escorted Hunter through a violent mob of whites as she became the first African American student to attend classes at the University of Georgia. (Charlayne Hunter-Gault later became a newscaster on public television.)

Jordan left private practice and devoted full time to work in the civil rights movement. In 1962 he was appointed Georgia field director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He led the boycott of Augusta, Georgia, merchants who refused to serve Blacks. In 1966 Jordan became director of the Southern Regional Council's Voter Education Project. The project sponsored voter registration campaigns in 11 southern states and conducted seminars, workshops, and conferences for candidates and office holders.

In 1970, Jordan took a six-month appointment as a fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard and then, and became executive director of the United Negro College Fund. Two years later, when Whitney Young, executive director of the National Urban League, Jordan was appointed his successor. As director of the league, Jordan developed a highly regarded research and information distribution capability, including a policy journal--The Urban League Review--and the annual State of Black America reports. The State of Black America, issued each January to coincide with the president's State of the Union address, became a major source of systematic facts on the Black condition in the United States and an important resource for identifying African American policy perspectives. Jordan wrote a weekly syndicated column, lecturing, and appearing on national television interview programs.

A frequent adviser to government, corporate, and labor leaders, He also was frequently appointed to presidential advisory boards and commissions. In May of 1980 Jordan was shot in the back and wounded by a lone gunman waiting in ambush outside a Fort Wayne, Indiana, motel. Although Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed white racist, was charged in the shooting, he denied involvement and was acquitted. Fourteen years later, awaiting trial on other charges, Franklin admitted he had shot Jordan.

After recovering from the attempted assassination, Jordan resigned as director of the Urban League and became a partner in the Washington, D. C., offices of the Dallas-based firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld. Here he began serving on the boards of directors of nine major American corporations. Jordan continued to be an important behind-the-scenes operative and advocate for civil rights interests. The 1992 Presidential election of Jordan's longtime friend Bill Clinton propelled Jordan to more influence.

In 2001 Jordan, along with Bill Bradley, Marian Wright Edelman aided Laura Bush. The focus was to launch the 2nd Annual “Close The Book On Hate” Campaign. Vernon Jordan, Jr., is a senior managing director of the investment firm Lazard Freres & Co. In 2002 he wrote the book "Vernon Can Read! A Memoir"

Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (Guyanas' Finest)
(February 20 1923 – August 6 1985)
was a Guyanese political leader and leader of Guyana from 1964 until his death, as the Prime Minister from 1964 to 1980 and as President from 1980 to 1985. He was married to Viola Burnham, who was also involved in politics. He has three children, Roxane, Annabelle, and Francesca from his first marriage to Bernice Lataste. His second marriage to Viola produced two daughters, Melanie and Ulele and later a son Kamana.

Personal life and education
Burnham, an Afro-Guyanese, was born in Kitty, a suburb of Georgetown, East Demerara, Guyana as one of three children.
He attended the prestigious and the colony's elite Queen's College.
In 1942, he won the Guiana Scholarship as the colony’s top student.
Burnham received a law degree from the University of London in 1948.


Early years: The People's Progressive Party (PPP)
In 1950, Burnham, along with Indo-Guyanese labor leader Cheddi Jagan, established the People's Progressive Party.
In 1952, he became the president of the party's affiliated trade union, the British Guiana Labour Union.
That same year, the PPP won 18 of 24 seats in the first elections permitted by the British colonial government.

In 1955, there was a split in the PPP between Burnham and Jagan. As a result, Burnham went on to form the People's National Congress in 1958 entering its first election under that name in 1961

Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow

The early years: http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter96.html

Critchlow in the workers' struggle:
http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter97.html

PAUL ROBESON (1898-1976)

Occupation - Singer, Actor, Activist, Lawyer

Introduction
Paul Robeson, a great American singer and actor, spent much of his life actively agitating for equality and fair treatment for all of America's citizens as well as citizens of the world. Robeson brought to his audiences not only a melodious baritone voice and a grand presence, but magnificent performances on stage and screen. Although his outspokenness often caused him difficulties in his career and personal life, he unswervingly pursued and supported issues that only someone in his position could effect on a grand scale. His career flourished in the 1940s as he performed in America and numerous countries around the world. He was one of the most celebrated persons of his time.

Narrative Essay
Paul Leroy Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 9, 1898, the fifth and last child of Maria Louisa Bustill and William Drew Robeson. During these early years the Robeson's experienced both family and financial losses. At the age of six Paul and his siblings, William, Reeve, Ben and Marian suffered the death of their mother in a household fire. This was followed a few years later with their father's loss of his Princeton pastorate. After moving first to Westfield, the family finally settled in Somerville, New Jersey, in 1909, where William Robeson was appointed pastor of St. Thomas AME Zion Church.

Enrolling in Somerville High School, one of only two blacks, Paul Robeson excelled academically while successfully competing in debate, oratorical contests, and showing great promise as a football player. He also got his first taste of acting in the title role of Shakespeare's Othello. In his senior year he not only graduated with honors, but placed first in a competitive examination for scholarships to enter Rutgers University. Although his other male siblings chose all-black colleges, Robeson took the challenge of attending Rutgers, a majority white institution in 1915.

In college between 1915 to 1919, Robeson experienced both fame and racism. In trying out for the varsity football team, where blacks were not wanted, he encountered physical brutality. In spite of this resistance, Robeson not only earned a place on the team but was named first on the roster for the All-American college team. He graduated with 15 letters in sports. Academically he was equally successful, elected a member of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Society and the Cap and Skull Honor Society of Rutgers. Graduating in 1919 with the highest grade point average in his class, Robeson gave the class oration at the 153d Rutgers Commencement.

With college life behind him, Robeson moved to the Harlem section of New York City to attend law school, first at New York University, later transferring to Columbia University. He sang in the chorus of the musical Shuffle Along (1921) by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, and made his acting debut in 1920 playing the lead role in Simon the Cyrenian by poet Ridgely Torrence. Robeson's performance was so well received that he was congratulated not only by the Harlem YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) audience but also by members of the Provincetown Players who were in the audience. While working odd jobs and taking part in professional football to earn his college fees, Robeson met Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode. The granddaughter of Francis L. Cardozo, the secretary of state of South Carolina during Reconstruction, she was a graduate of Columbia University and employed as a histological chemist. She was the first black staff person at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. The couple married on August 17, 1921, and their son Paul Jr. was born on November 2, 1927.

To support his family while studying at Columbia Law School, Robeson played professional football for the Akron Pros (1920--1921) and the Milwaukee Badgers (1921--1922), and during the summer of 1922 he went to England to appear in a production of Taboo, which was renamed Voodoo. Once graduating from Columbia in 1923, Robeson sought work in his new profession, all the while singing at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem. Offered an acting role in 1923 in Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, Robeson quickly took this opportunity; he had recently quit a law firm because the secretary refused to take dictation from a black person.

Although All God's Chillun brought threats by the Ku Klux Klan because of the play's interracial subject matter and the fact that a white woman was to kiss Robeson's hand, it was an immediate success. It was followed in 1924 by his performances in a revival of The Emperor Jones, the play Rosanne, and the silent movie Body and Soul for Oscar Micheaux, an independent black film maker. In 1925 Robeson debuted in a formal concert at the Provincetown Playhouse. His performance which consisted of Negro spirituals and folk songs was so brilliant that he and his accompanist, Lawrence Brown, were offered a contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company. Encouraged by this success, Robeson and Brown embarked on a tour of their own, but were sorely disappointed. Even though they received good reviews, the crowds were small and they made very little money. What Robeson came to know was that his talents in acting and singing would serve as the combined focus of his career.

Acting and Singing Career
Robeson's acting career started to take off in 1928 when he accepted the role of Joe in a London production of Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. It was his singing of "Ol' Man River" that received the most acclaim regarding the show and earned him a great degree of attention from British socialites. Robeson gave concerts in London at Albert Hall and Sunday afternoon concerts at Drury Lane. In spite of all this attention, Robeson still had to deal with racism. In 1929 he was refused admission to a London hotel. Because of the protest raised by Robeson, major hotels in London said they would no longer refuse service to blacks.

Much attention was given to Robeson's acting and singing and he was embraced by the media. The New Yorker magazine in an article by Mildred Gilman referred to Robeson as "the promise of his race," "King of Harlem," and "Idol of his people." Robeson returned briefly to America in 1929 to perform at a packed Carnegie Hall. In May of 1930, after establishing a permanent residence in England, Robeson accepted the lead role in Shakespeare's Othello. This London production at the Savoy Theatre was the first time since the performance of the great black actor Ira Aldridge in 1860 that a major production company cast a black man in the part of the Moor. Robeson was a tall, strikingly handsome man with a deep, rich, baritone voice and a shy, almost boyish manner. The audience was so mesmerized by his performance in Othello that the production had 20 curtain calls.

Accolades for outstanding acting and singing performances were prevalent during the 1930s in Robeson's career, but his personal and home life were surrounded by difficulties. His wife Eslanda "Essie," who had published a book on Robeson, Paul Robeson, Negro (1930), sued for divorce in 1932. Her actions were encouraged by the fact that Robeson had fallen in love and planned to marry Yolande Jackson, a white Englishwoman. Jackson, whom Robeson called the love of his life, had originally accepted his proposal but later called the marriage off. It was thought by some who knew the Jackson family well that she was strongly influenced by her father, Tiger Jackson, who was less than tolerant of Robeson and people of color in general. With his marriage plans cancelled, Robeson and his wife came to an understanding regarding their relationship, and the divorce proceedings were cancelled.

Activism
Robeson returned to New York briefly in 1933 to star in the film version of Emperor Jones before turning his attention to the study of singing and languages. His stay in the United States was a short one due to his treatment by the racist American film industries and because of criticism by blacks regarding his role as a corrupt emperor. Upon returning to England, Robeson eagerly immersed himself in his studies and mastered several languages. Robeson along with Essie became an honorary members of the West African Students' Union, becoming acquainted with African students Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, future presidents of Ghana and Kenya, respectively. It is also during this time that Robeson played at a benefit for Jewish refugees which marked the beginning of his political awareness and activism.

Robeson's inclination to aid the less fortunate and the oppressed in their fight for freedom and equality was firmly rooted in his own family history. His father William Drew Robeson was an escaped slave who eventually graduated from Lincoln College in 1878, and his maternal grandfather, Cyrus Bustill, was a slave who was freed by his second owner in 1769 and went on to become an active member of the African Free Society. Recognizing the heritage that brought him so many opportunities, Robeson, between 1934 and 1937 performed in several films that presented blacks in other than stereotypical ways. He acted in such films as Sanders of the River (1935), King Solomon's Mines (1937) and Song of Freedom (1937).

On a trip to the Soviet Union in 1934 to discuss the making of the film Black Majesty, Robeson not only had discussions with the Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein during his trip but was so impressed regarding the education against racism for schoolchildren that he began to study Marxism and Socialist systems in the Soviet Union. He also decided to send his son, nine-year-old Paul Jr., to school in the Soviet Union so that he would not have to contend with the racism and discrimination Robeson confronted in both Europe and America.

Robeson continued acting in films confronting stereotypes of blacks while receiving rave reviews for his success in singing "Ol' Man River" in the 1936 film production of Show Boat. He also embarked on a more active role in fighting the injustices he found throughout the world. Robeson co-founded the Council on African Affairs to aid in African liberation, sang and spoke at benefit concerts for Basque refugees, supported the Spanish Republican cause, and sang at rallies to support a democratic Spain along with numerous other causes. At a benefit in Albert Hall in London, Robeson is quoted in Philip Foner's Paul Robeson Speaks as saying "The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative." This statement echoed a clear and focused direction of Robeson's personal and professional life.

In 1939 Robeson stated his intentions to retire from commercial entertainment and returned to America. He gave his first recital in the United States at Mother AME Zion Church Harlem where his brother Benjamin was pastor. Later on in the same year Robeson premiered the patriotic song "Ballad for Americans" on CBS radio as a preview of a play by the same name. The song was so well received that studio audiences cheered for 20 minutes after the performance while the listening audience exceeded the response even for Orson Welles's famous Martian scare program. Robeson's popularity in the United states soared and he remained the most celebrated person in the country well into the 1940s. He was awarded the esteemed NAACP Spingarn Medal (1945) as well as numerous other awards and recognitions from civic and professional groups. In the American production of Othello (1943), Robeson's performance placed him among the ranks of great Shakespearean actors. The production ran for 296 performances--over ten months--and toured both the United States and Canada.

Robeson's political commitments became foremost in his life as he championed causes from South African famine relief to support of an anti-lynching law; in September 1946 he was among the delegation that spoke with President Harry S Truman about anti-lynching legislation. The meeting was a stormy one as Robeson adamantly urged Truman to act, all the while defending the Soviet Union and denouncing United States' allies. In October of the same year when called before the California Legislative Committee on Un-American activities, Robeson declared himself not a member of the Communist Party but praised their fight for equality and democracy. This attempt at branding him as un-American was successful in causing many to distrust his political commitments. Regardless of these events, Robeson decided to retire from concert work and devote himself to gatherings that promoted the causes to which he had dedicated himself.

In 1949 Robeson embarked on a European tour and in doing so spoke out against the discrimination and injustices that blacks in American had to confront. His statements were distorted as they were dispatched back to the United States. Although Robeson got mixed responses from the black community, the backlash from whites culminated in riot before a scheduled concert in Peekskill, New York, on August 27, 1949; a demonstration by veteran organizations turned into a full-blown riot. Robeson was advised of this and returned to New York. He did agree to do a second concert on September 4 in Peekskill for the people who truly wanted to hear him. The concert did take place but afterwards a riot broke out which lasted into the night leaving over 140 persons seriously injured. With such violence surrounding Robeson's concerts, many groups and sponsors no longer supported him.

By 1950 Robeson had received by so much negative press that he made plans for a European tour. His plans were abruptly halted because the United States government refused to allow him to travel unless he agreed not to make any speeches. With no passport and denied his freedom of speech abroad, Robeson continued to speak out in public forums and through his own monthly newspaper, Freedom. Barred from all other forms of media, his own newspaper became his primary platform from 1950 to 1955. His remaining supporters encompassed the National Negro Labor Council, Council on African Affairs, and the Civil Rights Congress. The NAACP openly attacked Robeson while other black organization shunned him in fear of reprisals. Undaunted by these negative responses, Robeson traveled the United States encouraging groups to fight for their rights and for equal treatment. Even though he suffered from health as well as financial difficulties, Robeson held firm to his convictions and published in 1958 his autobiography Here I Stand through a London publishing house.

On May 10, 1958, Robeson gave his first New York concert in ten years to a packed Carnegie Hall. When the concert was over, he informed the audience that the passport battle had been won. From 1958 to 1963 Robeson traveled to England, the Soviet Union, Austria, and New Zealand. He was showered with awards and played to packed houses throughout his travels. After being hospitalized several times throughout his trip due to a disease of the circulatory system, Robeson returned to the United States. Much had changed since the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and school integration were in full enactment. Robeson was welcomed on his return by Freedomways, a quarterly review which saw him as a powerful fighter for freedom. A salute to Robeson was given in 1965 which was chaired by actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee along with writer James Baldwin and many other admirers.

Eslanda "Essie" Robeson died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 68 and Robeson went to live with his sister Marian in Philadelphia. He remained in seclusion until he died there on January 23, 1976; on his 75th birthday four days later a "Salute to Paul Robeson" was held in Carnegie Hall. Paul Leroy Robeson's funeral was held at Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem before a crowd of 5,000.

On February 24, 1998, Robeson received a posthumous Grammy lifetime achievement award. His honors are numerous, as Robeson's life is being depicted through exhibits, film festivals, and lectures. Upon the centennial of his birth on April 9, 1998, at least 25 U.S. states and several countries worldwide hosted celebrations of his life and work in every conceivable manner.

Paul Robeson was truly a man who saw a commitment to the oppressed, and particularly black people, as a much more profound calling than the accolades he received for his astonishing talents. His extraordinary voice and engaging acting abilities would have undoubtedly brought him more fame, fortune, and approval than the activist role he pursed instead. It is because of this clear vision of justice that he is remembered as a great American and a great citizen of the world.

Sources
Duberman, Martin B. Paul Robeson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
Foner, Philip S. Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews 1918--1974. New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers, 1978.
Jackson, Kenneth T., and others, eds. Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Ten, 1976--1980. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995.
"Robeson Receives Posthumous Grammy." New York Times, February 25, 1998.
Southern, Eileen. Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Williams, Michael W., ed. The African American Encyclopedia. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1993.
Collections
Paul Robeson's papers are in the Robeson Family Archives, Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington D.C.