Death of Dudley Thompson highlights Jamaican and pan-African service
The passing yesterday of Dudley Thompson (Jamaica & Merton 1947), former Foreign Minister of Jamaica, has focussed attention on his immense contributions, and those of other Rhodes Scholars, to Jamaican public life and to the pan-African and African diaspora movements.
After war service in the Royal Air Force and then reading law in Oxford, Dudley Thompson practised as a barrister in Tanganyika and elsewhere in East Africa (1951-56), including representing Jomo Kenyatta in his Mau Mau rebellion trial. After an outstanding legal and political career back in Jamaica, he represented Jamaica as its envoy to Nigeria and other West African countries (1990-95). At the time of his death, he was President of the World African Diaspora Union, and had only months before been recognised as a 'citizen of Africa' by the African Union.
Serving in the Jamaican Parliament from 1964 to 1980, Dudley Thompson was the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1975-77; for Mining and Natural Resources, 1977-78; and for National Security, 1978-80. He was elected to Parliament as a member of the People's National Party, which had been founded by Norman Manley (Jamaica & Jesus 1914), and served as a minister and as chair of the People's National Party in the 1970s under the prime ministership of Michael Manley.
For more information on Dudley Thompson, and links to other tributes to him, please click here.
This month has also seen the appointment to the Cabinet of Jamaica of another Rhodes Scholar, the Revd Ronald Thwaites (Jamaica & Campion Hall 1968), who has been appointed Minister for Education.
Delroy Chuck (Jamaica & St Catherine's College 1973) served as Minister for Justice in the previous Jamaican government.
The public service of Jamaican Rhodes Scholars was also highlighted at Rhodes House in December when the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Sir Shridath Ramphal, delivered the inaugural lecture in memory of Rex Nettleford (Jamaica & Oriel 1957). Sir Shridath spoke of Norman Manley's and Rex Nettleford's advocacy of pan-Caribbean unity, and urged greater Caribbean unity today. For more on Sir Shridath's Rex Nettleford Memorial Lecture, click here.
The Rex Nettleford Memorial Lecture was held in conjunction with the Jamaican High Commissioner to London, His Excellency Anthony Johnson, who in October met with current Jamaican and Commonwealth Caribbean Scholars at Rhodes House, and encouraged them to contribute as best they could to the future of Jamaica and the Caribbean. (See photograph of the High Commissioner and Scholars here.)
Dudley Thompson is one of a number of Rhodes Scholars also to work for pan-African unity. One who is now recognised with an annual memorial lecture in Oxford is Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (Nigeria & St Peter's 1983), who was a journalist and general secretary of the Pan-African Movement, and who died in a car accident in Kenya on Africa Day in May 2009.
Appointments of Rhodes Scholars (such as those of Ronald Thwaites and Delroy Chuck) are listed here, and tributes on their passing are here.
