Ekwueme Michael Thelwell was in 1970 the founding chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has been a member of the faculty ever since. He is currently Professor of Literature and Writing. The Jamaican born writer, activist, educator, intellectual received his early education at Jamaica College. He came to the United States in 1959 to attend Howard University and went on to do his graduate work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Thelwell was active in the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, participating in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Thelwell's anti-apartheid activism in the 1980s resulted in successful legislation enacting a law against corporate tax write-offs for U.S. based corporations paying taxes to the apartheid regime in South Africa. He considers this law his most effective and consequential political achievement.
Courtesy of The University of Massachusetts-Amherst