White People: Say NO to the FBI War on Black Liberation! Hands Off Uhuru!

White people across the U.S. and beyond are taking action to stand in solidarity with the African People’s Socialist Party’s fight-back against the U.S. government’s attacks on the movement for African liberation! 

Members of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM), the organization of white people created by the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) to win reparations to African people, have been immersed in a serious outreach campaign for its upcoming National Convention. 

The convention on March 11-12, 2023, in St. Louis, calls on white people to do more than sit on the sidelines; we are called to leap into action to defend the Black Liberation Movement against ongoing attacks from the U.S. government. 

These attacks have occurred on several different fronts:

On July 2, 2022, an individual pulled into the parking lot of the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida, retrieved a military-grade flamethrower from their trunk and torched the red, black and green African flag flying 30 feet above the ground. Local authorities have chosen not to classify this vicious act as a hate crime or arson. 

On July 29, 2022, the FBI carried out a military-style raid on the home of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and Deputy Chair Ona Zené Yeshitela in St. Louis, MO, along with 6 other homes and offices of leaders of the Uhuru Movement in St. Louis, MO and in St. Petersburg, FL. 

In October of 2022, a member of the African People’s Socialist Party was arrested and held for weeks on false charges, interrogated about the Uhuru Movement and later released with all charges dropped.

On January 7, 2023, a church across the street from Chairman Omali’s home where the July 2022 raids took place, which was under contract for purchase by the African People’s Socialist Party to become the new Uhuru House, was destroyed by a two alarm fire. Local authorities have refused to investigate what caused this fire or who might be accountable.

On February 14, 2023, the Pinellas County Commission in Florida revoked a $36,800 American Rescue Plan Act grant that had previously been awarded through a unanimous vote to Black Power 96.3 FM Radio in November of 2022. Not only was the vote to revoke the grant done under wraps, but the vote was not captured in any meeting notes or agenda items which is a violation of the Sunshine Law in Florida that states that all votes need to be public.

In response, Chairman Omali Yeshitela, as well as other movement leaders including APSP Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chairwoman Penny Hess and USM Chair Jesse Nevel, have been on a non-stop media campaign to build support for the APSP and Uhuru Movement.  They have conducted interviews with Democracy Now!, Black Agenda Report, Tara Reade, Carl Nelson, Kim Iverson, KPFA, tag24, Rock Newman, Lee Camp and many other media institutions.

The USM National Convention is taking place in the context of these attacks and the Party’s non-stop fight to build a black-led anti-colonial economy, as exemplified by the Black Power Blueprint.  All our outreach for the convention is part of the counteroffensive to build an impenetrable buffer between the black-led Uhuru Movement and the perpetrators of these violent attacks.

USM members have been blanketing cities across the country with thousands of convention posters and flyers hung on telephone poles, stacked in coffee shops, posted in business windows and more, calling on the white community to register for and attend the convention as an act of colonial resistance. Register today at USMconvention2023.eventbrite.com!

Every weekend you can find volunteers and members diligently organizing in the white community at outreach tables in parks, book shops and markets- signing up hundreds of white people to take part in stopping the U.S. government from attempting to silence the African Liberation Movement.  

Organizations that stand in solidarity with the Uhuru Movement have enthusiastically endorsed the convention and sent statements of support including Union del Barrio, the Green Party of St. Louis, United National Antiwar Coalition, Our Revolution- Twin Cities, Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, Existence is Resistance, Florida Indigenous Alliance, Detention Resistance Collective, and the Center for Political Innovation.

Additional events in St. Louis have been added to the convention weekend, creating what will truly be a dynamic and jam-packed four days for attendees! 

Thursday, March 9, Chairwoman Penny Hess headlines a reading and book signing event at the Spine Bookstore & Cafe. Friday evening, attendees are invited to a social gathering at the Uhuru Solidarity Center, which was one of the seven buildings raided by the FBI during their July 29, 2022 attack on the Uhuru Movement.

The Convention itself will include workshops on “A Moment of Peril & Promise: Crisis, Colonial Wars and Humanity’s Future” featuring Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African Socialist International Secretary General Luwezi Kinshasa, Chairwoman Penny Hessand Existence is Resistance co-founder Nancy Mansour, along with “Stop the Legal Lynching of Chairman Omali Yeshitela! Put the FBI On Trial!” featuring APSP Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai, Hands Off Uhuru Chair Mwezi Odom, Ward 18 Alderman Jesse Todd and the St. Louis Green Party’s Susan Armstrong.  Day two of the convention will include a tour of the historic Black Power Blueprint; the economic development program that puts socialist theory into practice by and for the Black working class, and will close with a special panel, “Meet the Uhuru Legal Team: Special Event & Fundraiser for the Hands Off Uhuru Legal Defense.”

Hear what Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel have to say about the significance of the National Convention in interviews on Classwars.org with Fred Nagel, KKFI FM in Kansas City, MO, Prison Pipeline on KBOO, Fortress On a Hill, and Reparations in Action. 

White people: we must understand that the African community is under attack every day by the U.S. government. Your attendance at the 2023 USM National Convention is a declaration that you will not be complicit with these ongoing attacks!   

Stand in solidarity with the right of African people to be free and self-determining!  End U.S. government attacks on the African community! Stop the FBI war on Black liberation! Register and attend the USM National Convention! USMconvention2023.eventbrite.com