The FBI wants to put me on trial for fighting for black freedom. Put the colonial state on trial! We will win!

There are strong indications that in early 2023, I, Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP), founder of the Uhuru (“Freedom”) Movement, will be indicted, along with other Uhuru leaders and members, by the federal government of the United States.

Using the bogus and slanderous charge that we are “Russian agents,” the U.S. government and its “Department of Justice” will attempt to put us on trial and imprison us for fighting for the liberation of African people in the U.S. and around the world.

But they will fail. We will win. 

I am 81 years old. My political work for the last 60 years or so is influenced by the fact that in my entire life, nearing 100 years, I have not known a single day when my people were not experiencing oppression, exploitation and humiliation.  For most of my life, I have worked to build the movement for freedom for black people in the U.S. and around the world, most significantly beginning with my work as an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s.

Since 1972 I have organized and led the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement, a worldwide organization fighting for the self-determination of African people everywhere. Our organizational presence extends to nearly every continent. We exist throughout the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Africa and the Caribbean. 

Our Party presides over more than 50 institutions of economic development and self-reliance for the African community including numerous projects in north St. Louis, Missouri known as the Black Power Blueprint. 

On July 29 of 2022, the FBI violently and militarily raided my home in north St. Louis, Missouri where I live with my wife, the Deputy Chair of the African People’s Socialist Party, Ona Zené Yeshitela, along with six other homes and offices of Uhuru Movement leaders. 

Now the U.S. government is attempting to discredit our righteous struggle to free our people from the perpetual immiseration we face in this country stemming from America’s unresolved “original sin” of slavery and colonialism, a sin whose existence was given testimony by U.S. president Joseph Biden on December 15 of this year.

Their “case” against us is baseless and ridiculous. Our case against them is backed by an undeniable history of centuries of ongoing atrocities against our people and our movement by the U.S. government, who have often used the FBI and Department of Justice as their political weapons against us.

When they put us on trial, we will put them on trial. 

The U.S. government must be made to explain this attack on us in light of the well-known history of COINTELPRO and other covert and overt acts of surveillance, harassment, imprisonment and/or assassination of leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Fred Hampton and many others.

The U.S. is attempting to hide this blatant attack on black people by saying that it is an attack on Russia, not the African Liberation Movement. 

How will they defend this absurd notion against the overwhelming evidence of the criminal colonial assaults by the FBI and Justice Department against African people historically, often using the specter of “the Russians” or “the Communists” as their legal cover? 

This case is not about whether or not I went to Russia, or whether or not I have a position around the war in Ukraine that was the same as what the Russians had. This attack was perpetrated against us because we have always fought for the liberation of Africa and African people everywhere.

The legal statutes the U.S. will use to execute this political attack will include the so-called “Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),” which they also used in 1951 to construct their indictment of W.E.B. DuBois on nearly identical charges of working for “the Russians.” 

This is selective prosecution. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other Israeli lobbying organizations are seemingly immune from prosecution under the FARA law despite their obvious public function as agents of the Israeli government. The “Foreign Agents Registration Act” is almost never enforced unless it is used as a tool against Africans and other colonized peoples. 

We will raise up our supposed legal rights to freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly, but more importantly, the government must be made to answer for their oppression and terror against black people historically.

Beginning in the 1970s, our Party laid out a strategic approach to winning the freedom for black people that included building relationships with people all around the world to support the struggle for African self-determination in the U.S. 

At our First Party Congress held in Oakland, California in 1981, we received solidarity statements from organizations and governments from around the world, including FECOPES in Colombia, Casa El Salvador, the Pan African Congress of Azania (South Africa), the FSLN government from Nicaragua, the New Jewel Movement-led government of Grenada, Casa Chile, the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of Argentina, the Association of Vietnamese Patriots in the U.S., and the National United Movement of Barbados. 

This helps to give lie to the notion that our connection to a Russian NGO is evidence of an illicit relationship that we would have with a “foreign” power.  

I traveled to Ireland more than 40 years ago to meet with the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) at a time when the Irish people were engaged in a struggle for their independence from British colonialism. 

In 1983 The Burning Spear newspaper published an article covering how we won the Irish Republican Socialist Party to support our demand for reparations. They held a press conference with us in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The IRSP came out and said that they didn’t want any monetary donations from any Irish people in America who were not supporting the liberation struggle of black people in the U.S. 

Our Party has a half-century long historical trajectory that precedes anything that the U.S. government is talking about now in terms of Russia. I was in Nicaragua representing black people after the Nicaraguan Revolution, based on our relationship with the Sandinista National Liberation Front with whom we worked closely in San Francisco leading up to their victory in 1979. 

In 1982 we held the first World Tribunal for Reparations for Black People in history. We indicted the U.S. government based on international law and the right of an oppressed people to wield our own state power. 

One aspect of the international law used for the Reparations Tribunal was the question of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 

An international panel of judges ruled at the end of two days of testimony that the United States is guilty of genocide against African people. It took another 40 years for the United States to ratify this genocide convention, and only in a fashion that freed itself from any possible trial or repercussions. 

The reason the U.S. wouldn’t ratify the Genocide Convention was because they wanted to evade responsibility for their treatment of the colonized African and Indigenous peoples in this country. 

The U.S. government and the FBI’s attacks on the Uhuru Movement did not begin in 2022. It goes back decades. 

In 1996 more than 300 militarily armed police attacked the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, FL, with airplanes and helicopters. They pumped the entire reserve of tear gas in the city into the Uhuru House where a mass meeting was going on following the police murder of an 18-year-old African teen. This was the same Uhuru House they just invaded and raided again on July 29. 

As I mentioned earlier, Biden himself, when he was trying to win the loyalty of people in Africa, had to confess the “original sin” of this country: the stolen labor of African people on the stolen land of the Indigenous people, the foundation on which the United States rests.

Let’s call Biden as a witness to testify about this original sin. Let’s cross-examine him with these questions: Did the original sin ever go away? Can we explain the police murder of George Floyd by the original sin? Can we explain the attacks on the Uhuru Movement by this original sin? 

After the FBI raids on seven offices and homes of the Uhuru Movement in two cities in the pre-dawn hours of July 29, 2022, there was a tremendous amount of interest, support and outrage coming from literally millions of people and organizations throughout the U.S. and the world. 

Numerous organizations and individuals including St. Louis Alderman from Ward 18, Jesse Todd, Zaki Baruti, President-General of the Universal Afrikan People’s Organization, New York councilpersons Charles and Inez Barron, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Nellie Bailey and others sent messages of support, all of which are cited on our website HandsOffUhuru.org.

But as indictments loom, now is the time to escalate the campaign to mobilize massive public support for the Uhuru Movement, the African People’s Socialist Party, its leaders and members and the right of African people everywhere to organize and advocate for our liberation.

Resources are urgently needed for our legal defense and campaign work. We are recruiting into our legal support team. We urge all supporters to sign the emergency response pledge form in preparation for political actions once the indictments come down: HandsOffUhuru.org/Emergency-Response

Our victory will be won in the streets. Join the movement. Put the colonial state on trial. Turn the tables. Win broad mass support from African people and other forces inside this country and around the world.

Join the Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa! Defense Campaign and get involved wherever you’re located. Build a committee. Donate. Hold a fundraiser. Be a part of making history and winning a landmark victory for the African Liberation Movement that will forever change the world. 

We will win! 

We are winning!

Additional Reading & Resources
We demand an end to all harassment, raids, surveillance, infiltration, theft of property, threats of criminal charges, attempts at intimidation, slander and discrediting of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement by the FBI and all other fronts of the U.S. colonial state. We denounce the history of the COINTELPRO program and all U.S. government programs created to assassinate and politically imprison our leaders, and to disrupt and disunite the African Liberation Movement around the world. We stand in support of the right of African people to advocate and organize for the liberation and unification of Africa and forcibly dispersed African people everywhere.

See the Petition here to sign. 

Hands Off the Uhuru Movement!, August 1, 2022

Where will the next Ferguson uprising take place?

By Charles Brooks

Michael Brown has finally been laid to rest after he was gunned down two weeks ago by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th.  You can only imagine what his parents, family, friends and those who knew him – have gone through in the last two weeks since that fateful day on August 9th.  Just like that, after an encounter with the police, his parents now have to deal with the grief and numbing sadness that comes with having to bury their 18 year old son.

Who would have thought or even have the foresight to see Michael Brown's murder – the death of yet another unarmed black youth by the hands of a police officer – as the trigger to a rebellious uprising in Ferguson? Who would have believed Brown’s death would peel back another scab of American hypocrisy for all to witness the bubbling infectious sore of American apartheid, racism, and social inequality?  Ferguson has clearly become a flashpoint where racial frustrations and deep seated tensions were unleashed in the face of aggressive and provocative policing.  Within hours after  Brown’s murder, the state response to the rebellious uprising quickly escalated into a domestic military operation – complete with the deployment of the National Guard.

Eric Garner: Resisting arrest or Resisting harassment (Part II)

By Charles Brooks

The tragic death of Mr. Eric Garner that came as a result of the choke hold – an illegal police maneuver banned since 1994 – continues to provoke nationwide outrage, particularly in black communities.  Consider for a moment, the reasons igniting this outrage – the excessive use of force leading to yet another death of an unarmed black man, and the political support for police in the face of a blatant lack of accountability to these seemingly routine acts of police misconduct and murder.  But there’s deeper factor to consider here – the historical roots that branches out to the limbs of indifference afforded to black life.

Mr. Garner’s death continues to spark outrage because of the many people who can relate and connect through personal experience – the thousands who have been stopped and harassed by the police - and lived to talk about it. The thousands of stories about controlling that feeling that just grips you when you see the bright flash of the red and blue lights in your rear view mirror. Or the harassment that comes with being repeatedly stopped and frisked.  Or the feeling of being fully aware that even the slightest encounter with the police can turn bad…and sometimes fatal.  This connection was played out when the video was being played over and over again to the collective nods of approval. People are outraged because they connected with Mr. Garner when he crossed his arms in front of him and told the police officers that it stops today…we all knew what he meant by ‘it’. Mr. Garner said to the officers: "...Every time you see me you want to wrestle with me.  I'm tired of it...it stops today...I'm minding my own business officer. Please leave me alone...I told you for the last time, please leave me alone."

This is why Mr. Garner’s death continues to resonate with the public consciousness - because of their connection to a shared experience.  The outrage grew in the aftermath of Mr. Garner’s death when more videos displaying similar criminal acts by NYPD were released as well as chokehold statistics – 1022 chokehold incidents between 2009-1013.

End of Year review for 2013 - Part II

Part II
On the national political scene, 2013 opened up with President Obama ready to start his second term while Republicans gathered to debate their apparent demise during the November 2012 elections. But this GOP introspection didn’t last long as their long-term strategic objective – solid obstructionism – was back in play. Throughout the year, the nation was witness to both GOP obstructionism and Obama capitulation play out for all to see. There were several failed attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act, the federal government 16-day shutdown that cost upwards of $24 billion to the elimination of unemployment benefits and food stamp benefits for millions of people. Another casualty of GOP obstructionism was effective gun control legislation – after yet another school shooting, this time at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012 and episodes of gun violence occurring throughout the nation. The gun violence in Chicago became nationalized when young Hadiya Pendelton was shot dead less than two weeks after playing in a band at the presidential inauguration ceremonies. The president was subsequently criticized for failing to show similar emotion in reacting to Hadiya’s death compared to his shedding a tear on national television in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. African Americans across the nation began to sound the drumbeat in asking the president to do something – say something...First Lady Michelle Obama attended the funeral along with Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Valerie Jarrett – all three are from Chicago.

The nation stood witness to the headlines and stories dominated by the Affordable Care Act all year long, particularly when the ACA rollout faced an avalanche of problems associated with the website, Healthcare.gov. The rollout was characterized by the chaos that followed revelations of number of major technical problems, insurance plans for millions of folks were dropped, and poor management decisions from the Obama administration, just to name a few. In short, the rollout was a disaster and a rather bitter pill for the president to swallow. The Affordable Care Act is his signature piece of legislation and has been under constant attack from Republicans since the president signed off on it. There were repeated efforts to undermine Obama’s key legislation through attempts at defunding and repealing ACA – every attempt unsuccessful.

As 2013 came to a close, the Obama administration reported that slightly more than two million people have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Although, they may be severely challenged in meeting the seven million target – it does appears that the worse is behind Obama’s team. However, that has not stopped opponents of ACA who are encouraged by declining poll numbers for both Obama and ACA. For example, results from a December 2013 Gallup poll disclosed that ACA is both President Obama’s greatest achievement (22%) as well as his biggest failure (36%). Republican opponents of ACA continue their efforts to undermine the nearly four year old law with online petitions to repeal and defund ACA.

But the reality is that ACA has clearly forced a paradigm shift in America where for the first time, there is a national effort to provide health insurance coverage to the nearly fifty million Americans without health insurance. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act is such a HUGE step forward not only in providing coverage for the uninsured but the protections as well as preventive care that will now be provided. For example, pre-existing conditions are now covered; preventive care is free; coverage is extended for young adults until they reach twenty-six years old; and lifetime and yearly limits are eliminated. See a complete listing here for all protections provided The free screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, Type-2 diabetes, HIV – and particular for women – screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, mammograms, Hepatitis for pregnant women are just a scant few examples. See a complete listing here for a listing of all available screening for women. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama spoke with several mothers about ACA and the president said, “I think this conversation really drove home in a very personal way why this is important,” President Obama said. “Sometimes here in Washington, this is a very abstract conversation or an entirely political conversation. But when you boil it down to stories and people hear what it means to have the security of solid health insurance at an affordable price when you need it, it reminds me at least of why we've been fighting so hard to get this done.”

2013 ended with Hillary Clinton declared the frontrunner for the 2016 presidential race – although she hasn’t officially announced her candidacy. While end of the year Gallup polls underline her popularity – is this a legitimate consideration for the highest office in the country – before consideration of her politics and policy proposals? The voter must critically think for themselves and disregard Clinton popularity over policy; become more interested in policy proposals and ideas while ignoring celebrity and elitist endorsements. For example, while we know of Hillary’s advocacy for women issues - what do we know of her positions on the economy, unemployment, education, voting rights and affirmative action? What about her views on Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East? Where does she stand on the use of drones – both domestically and internationally, and the NSA surveillance on American citizens? Taking into consideration the fallout between Blacks and Clinton during the 2008 campaign – what will be Black America’s political reaction if Hillary disagrees and then criticizes President Obama policies? Hillary Clinton served as the First lady for two terms, went on to become a US Senator and then the Secretary of state – but voters, progressive voters must ask these and other necessary questions before a decision to support her candidacy is made.

NSA and government surveillance
There was also the jaw dropping revelations published by The Guardian about the National Security Agency commonly known as the NSA, who were actively collecting and storing phone record data on millions of Americans. While these revelations may not rise to the shrug your shoulder level – but should we really be surprised about this? After the September 11 attacks, there were several disclosures about the Bush presidency and government surveillance, not to mention the long sordid history of being watched or listened to by the government. We’ll get to this momentarily but getting back to the Bush presidency – there were similar revelations. For example, when he secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants required for domestic spying. Or in 2006 when we found out that the NSA was secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth to analyze calling patterns to detect terrorism.

But what should be quite disturbing was the revelation of a Pew survey measuring the public's view around combating terrorism vs. privacy - the results are interesting. The survey showed 56 percent of people believe the NSA tracking of telephone calls is an acceptable way to fight terrorism. That includes 53 percent of whites, 62 percent of blacks and 63 percent of nonwhites in general. In fact, the survey noted the following, "...finds no indications that last week’s revelations of the government’s collection of phone records and internet data have altered fundamental public views about the tradeoff between investigating possible terrorism and protecting personal privacy."

The question here is why is there so much acceptance of government surveillance, considering the sad history of government spying on US citizens and related abuses? Is there any awareness of the dangers of surveillance? For example, didn’t COINTELPRO demonstrate for all to see the connection between surveillance and political imprisonment – do you think this is the next natural step after accusations are made and charges levied? COINTELPRO was a domestic covert operation used by the FBI under the notorious J. Edgar Hoover. The covert operation was designed to repress political expression outside the mainstream. For example, victims of COINTELPRO were activists in the American Indian Movement, the Black Liberation Movement, Civil Rights Movement, Puerto Rican Independence Movement, Socialist Workers Party, Students for Democratic Society, and the Communist Party USA, to name a few. The FBI infiltrated these groups, used the legal system and the local police department to levy false criminal charges and carry out sting operations and murderous raids. Maybe – just maybe is it possible the acceptance of government surveillance, as indicated from the results from the Pew survey cited earlier – is based on fear? Do you think this begins to explain why there hasn’t been a strong national movement in this country, such as the social movements outlined earlier, since the sixties