> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.brownytimes.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Eusi Kwayana, ‘Sage of Buxton’ and WPA co-founder, dies at 101 - URL: https://www.brownytimes.com/eusi-kwayana-sage-of-buxton-and-wpa-co-founder-dies-at-101/ - Published: 2026-10-11T23:42:46.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T23:42:46.000Z - Description: The teacher, writer and political organiser served in Guyana’s 1953 government, became a senior figure in the PNC and helped establish the Working People’s Alliance. - Author: Browny Times - Tags: Politics, Obituary, Guyana History, WPA *The teacher, writer and political organiser served in Guyana’s 1953 government, became a senior figure in the PNC and helped establish the Working People’s Alliance.* **GEORGETOWN —** Eusi Kwayana, the educator, writer and political activist whose public life spanned more than eight decades of Guyana’s political history, died on Saturday, October 10, at his home in Atlanta, Georgia, according to Working People’s Alliance (WPA) co-leader David Hinds. He was 101. His death was announced jointly by his family and the WPA, which he helped establish in 1974\. No cause of death was given. “*The Sage of Buxton has left this side of the river to return to the source of his spirit*,” Hinds said in a video tribute posted on his Facebook programme *Politics 101*. “To the very end, he kept the faith, cradled the civilization, protected the vulnerable and empowered the powerless.” Born Sydney Evanson King on April 4, 1925, in Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, Kwayana moved with his family to Buxton as a child. He began teaching at the age of 15. In 1956, he founded County High School in Buxton, later renamed Republic Co-operative High School, and served as its principal. His long association with the village earned him the name by which many Guyanese knew him: the “Sage of Buxton.” #### From the PPP to the 1953 government Kwayana became politically active during the colonial period and was a founding executive member of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). He served as Minister of Communications and Works after the party won the 1953 election, the first held in British Guiana under universal adult suffrage. That government remained in office for 133 days. In October 1953, Britain suspended the colony’s constitution and restored direct colonial rule. Kwayana was later detained by the colonial authorities. #### The PNC years Following the split in the nationalist movement, Kwayana joined the People’s National Congress (PNC), led by Forbes Burnham, and served as the party’s second general secretary, replacing another founder of the PPP, Jai Narine Singh, Kwayana also replaced Singh as the editor of the PNC newspaper Thunder, renamed New Nation. In 1961, he co-founded the African Society for Racial Equality (ASRE). That same year, he was expelled from the PNC after proposing, on behalf of ASRE, a joint premiership between the country’s ethnic political leaders, with partition into racial zones as a last resort to avert ethnic violence and coining the term ‘Apaan Jaat’ meaning ‘vote for your own kind’. The circumstances of his expulsion remain debated. He later supported the party, campaigning for it in the 1968 election, and held several public-sector positions during the 1960s, including chairman of the Guyana Marketing Corporation and roles connected to land settlement, co-operative insurance and banking. By 1971, Kwayana and ASCRIA had severed their political relationship with the PNC government, and he became one of its critics. #### African cultural and political organising In 1964, Kwayana co-founded the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA). Like ASRE, it focused on African Guyanese cultural identity, political consciousness and community organisation. As ASCRIA’s coordinating elder, Sydney King adopted the name Eusi Kwayana, which the WPA says means “Black Man of Guyana” in Swahili. #### The Working People’s Alliance and Walter Rodney In 1974, Kwayana helped establish the Working People’s Alliance, which brought together several political and activist groups outside the country’s two dominant parties. He worked alongside historian Walter Rodney, as well as Clive Thomas, Rupert Roopnaraine, Andaiye and others, in an organisation that sought support across Guyana’s racial and political divisions. Rodney was killed in a bomb explosion in Georgetown on June 13, 1980, an event that remains one of the defining episodes in Guyana’s modern political history. Kwayana represented the WPA in the National Assembly from 1985 to 1991\. Colleagues have credited him with reviving the use of the Committee of Supply and making active use of the Office of the Ombudsman. He also wrote extensively for the party’s publications, *Dayclean* and *Open Word*. #### The man who wrote three parties’ songs Few details capture Kwayana’s unusual place in Guyanese history as well as this one: he wrote the lyrics to the party songs of the PPP, the PNC and the WPA, three organisations that would spend decades contending for the country’s future. He also wrote extensively on Guyanese history, race relations, politics and Buxton, and worked as a playwright, poet and folklorist. With his wife, Tchaiko Kwayana, he co-authored *Scars of Bondage*, a study of the experience of Africans under slavery and colonial rule in Guyana. #### Tributes The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) expressed deep sorrow at his passing, describing him as a patriot, historian and towering figure in Guyana’s political and social development, the state-owned *Guyana Chronicle* reported. Tchaiko Kwayana, born Ann Cook in the United States, was a Pan-Africanist and civil rights activist. She died in May 2017\. Kwayana is survived by his children. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of publication. Kwayana’s public life stretched from British colonial rule through the formation and evolution of the PPP, PNC and WPA, and into later debates over democracy, race and national identity in Guyana. “*His loss leaves an empty chair in the gallery of our Guyanese humanity*,” Hinds said.