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Our Jamaica

Photo Flashback : The Walter Rodney Riot – October 1968

Published:Friday | October 17, 2025 | 7:58 AM
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UWI students demonstrating with one of the many placards they carried on Wednesday, October 16, 1968.
The student demonstration was joined by a large number of other persons as it moved through the centre of the city.
Students of the University of the West Indies break through a police cordon along Mona Road, St Andrew. The police, armed with tear gas canisters and riot batons, are in hot pursuit.
Crowds dispersing after police used tear gas in one of the series of incidents during the demonstrations.
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On October 15, 1968, the Government of Jamaica declared Walter Rodney persona non grata. He was not allowed to leave the plane that brought him back to Jamaica from a Black Writers’ Congress in Canada.The decision to ban him sparked protests among students at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, and spread widely to include large sections of the working-class communities.

Here are some photos of the events, pulled from The Gleaner’s archives: