The 1978 Jonestown fiasco in Guyana, South America, is considered the greatest peacetime horror ever. Almost all of the 918 lives lost were U.S. citizens. All the books written on the subject are from outside authors. This is the first book by writers from inside Guyana and gives an inside look at the government and local environment with which Peoples Temple dealt with. Of all countries, why Guyana? This book hopefully answers that question as only people from the host territory can do.

A New Look at Jonestown

Eusi Kwayana

Carib House

Originally published in 1972, Eusi Kwayana's The Bauxite Strike and the Old Politics, offered profound lessons for class struggle in a multiracial society. Many decades later, Kwayana's work remains urgently relevant. 
 A product of Guyana, and a classic of Caribbean radical history, The Bauxite Strike and the Old Politics examines the struggle of Afro-Guyanese mine workers in what was the soon-to-be nationalized bauxite industry, as they faced off against the racism and sexism of the Canadian-owned aluminum firm, ALCAN, the class collaboration of the Guyana Mine Workers Union (GMWU), and the hostility of Forbes Burnham's government toward their self-organization and self-emancipation. Through these events, Burnham's regime -- which initially claimed to be a patron of global African solidarity, cultural renewal, and a cooperative society -- began to reveal itself as a collaborator with the empire of capital, an oppressor of Black workers, and a promoter of racial insecurity in Guyana. 
 Kwayana's work leads us to reconsider the nature of representative government and electoral politics. Black power, for Kwayana, began to transcend the notion of a Black ruling elite s equal opportunity to enter the rules of hierarchy. Through engagement with Guyana s bauxite workers, Black Power became synonymous with Black workers control. This new edition includes an introduction by Matthew Quest, and an appendix of rare ASCRIA (African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa) documents and writings by Kwayana, spanning this period of Guyanese history from 1972 to 1974. This new material documents Kwayana's fight against government corruption, his participation in Guyana s cooperative movement, and his facilitation, in 1973, of a multiracial rebellion of landless sugar workers.

The Bauxite Strike and the Old Politics

Business & Money

Matthew Quest

Economics

On Our Own Authority! Publishing

This book was spun like a silk thread into existence, linking 'our then' with 'our now', linking our dawn with our dusk. This book was spoken, a real audio book, by Eusi Kwayana interviewed by David Hinds. Eusi is a legend in his own time. He is a consummate educator, a thinker, a teacher, a leader, a giant of a man!, a "village man," an elder at ninety-one . . . a griot at best. It is a rare and long awaited historical interview. It is a conversation of how former enslaved Africans in Guyana collectively bought villages. They pioneered human living, civic rights and social change. The conversation outlines the general course of change going forward, winning and losing, but enduring. Being their own lawgivers, Africans created rights they previously didn't have. Hard facts, glimpses of culture, custom, and opinions of scholars are included in this book. Many important persons, unknown as villagers, infused with life again, leap off the pages. This book celebrates the celebrated with many pages of a black-and-white photo insert. It's a chronicle of the effect of African people on Guyana's socio-economic history against the back-drop of the Caribbean world stage. The interview took many years from 2004 to 2011, the UN International Year for People of African Descent. The conversation starts from the year 1839. "We give thanks for the ancestors who sent forth 'Dada' Eusi to teach us.

The Legend: Post-Emancipation Villages in Guyana: Making World History

History

Africa

The Franklin and Franklin Press

"Every man is his own leader and we are leaderless" this was the organizational principle voiced by the Afro-Guyanese bauxite mine workers in the democratic councils and mass assemblies that characterized the bauxite strike of April 1970.  Originally published in 1972, Eusi Kwayana's The Bauxite Strike and the Old Politics examines the struggle for workers' control in what was Guyana's soon-to-be-nationalized bauxite industry. Kwayana's account of these events underscores the workers' conviction that "nationalization without workers' control and workers' self-management is a fraud."  This revised second edition includes a biographical sketch of Eusi Kwayana, an introduction by Matthew Quest, and an appendix of rare documents published by ASCRIA (African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa). Over thirty leaflets, pamphlets, essays, editorials, and newspaper articles have been reprinted in this volume, documenting the struggle for workers' self-emancipation in Guyana from the bauxite strike of 1970 to the sugar workers' rebellion of 1974.

David Hinds

Americas

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Books by Eusi Kwayana