"It is only direct action on the part of the people, your own perception of what is possible, that can produce change."

Walter Rodney was murdered by the C.I.A. He was deemed dangerous enough to America's national interests abroad that he was killed with a bomb disguised as a two-way radio, which was planted by a C.I.A. operative. We can see part of what made people so vehemently opposed to his working class radicalism in the excerpts we read from his 1973 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

Rodney is correct to point out that the powers of European colonialism had no vested interest in developing African territories. Educated, empowered, and pragmatic people are less likely to passively submit to exploitation and oppression than fearful, technologically disadvantaged "primitives." However, Walter Rodney was not considered such a threat simply because he supported the rights of dispossessed laborers. The real reason can be discerned from statements such as this:

To complete the moral of the Rockefeller success story, it would be necessary to fill in the details on all the millions of people who had to be exploited in order for one man to become a multi-millionaire. The acquisition of wealth is not due to hard work alone, or the Africans working as slaves in America and the West Indies would have been the wealthiest group in the world. The individualism of the capitalist must be seen against the hard and unrewarded work of the masses.

For the most part, the C.I.A. did not give a shit about Africa, working Africans, starving African children, or African sovereignty. They cared about suppressing and defeating communism. Rodney's "far out" ideas that societies and governments owe a debt to the countless multitude who make possible the tremendous wealth of captains of industry was a shade too "red" for our liking. So somebody blew him up, widowing his wife and leaving his children fatherless. The reason that the C.I.A. is so secretive is because a lot of its history is as shameful as this.