Excerpts from Interview with Abyssinian, Artist and activist

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(Taken from the forthcoming book, Walter Rodney: A Promise of Revolution, published by Monthly review Press)

I looked at ‘Western’ movies growing up and I, like every one in the cinema, would cheer as the cavalry would be coming over the hill to rescue these poor beleaguered White people that had been attacked by Indians. Then I came to live in this society and began to learn the history of both slavery and what happened to Indians in this country and what deliberate genocidal approach that Europeans had towards any other race they met. Both in terms of what happened in the Americas, like what happened to Indian people, with Cortez and the rest of them. That really impacted me politically and that is when I started to ‘dread’ my hair. It did not come through religious conviction of Marcus Garvey or belief in Haile Selassie; it came because I wanted to be different and outside of that cultural influence. It was the first thing I thought about. That I would dread my hair and step away from a western concept of how one should appear. And from that I became involved with a lot of groups, trade unions fighting like Chavez with the farm workers union out of California. And People from South America whether from Chile or Colombia or Guatemala. I became involved loosely with those organizations here in the US. I participated in anything that had to do with Congress or the United Nations or in the street to make people aware of what was going on in their own homeland. So there was a network where we supported each other. If there were something on Guyana then they would send their representatives. Through that networking I began to build an international connection of people from other countries in a similar political situation that Guyana was beginning to emerge into under the Burnham regime. At that time Burnham was only beginning to formulate things but there were troubling signs of what was about to emerge. I had other friends, like my sister who had gone back home after living here. But there were other people who were involved in MAO, Movement Against Oppression which was a forerunner of the WPA that had been established because a lot of young black youth out of Tiger Bay had been killed by the police: execution style. They formed this organization lending political voice to these people.

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