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African People's Socialist Party

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African People's Socialist Party
AbbreviationAPSP
ChairmanOmali Yeshitela
FoundedMay 1972; 52 years ago (1972-05)
Merger ofJunta of Militant Organizations (JOMO)
Black Rights Fighters (BRF)
Black Study Group (BSG)
NewspaperThe Burning Spear Newspaper
IdeologyAfrican internationalism
African socialism
Communism
Pan-Africanism
Anti-imperialism
Anti-colonialism
Reparations for slavery
International affiliationAfrican Socialist International
Party flag
Website
apspuhuru.org

The African People's Socialist Party (APSP) is a pan-Africanist political party and organization working towards reparations for slavery in the United States, identifying ideologically with African internationalism and African socialism.[1] The party was created in May 1972 by the merger of three black power organizations based in Florida and Kentucky. Omali Yeshitela has been chairman of the APSP since 1972.[1][2]: 316 [3][4] The APSP leads its sister organization, the Uhuru Movement. Uhuru, pronounced /ʊhʊrʊ/, is Swahili for "freedom".[4] The APSP's stated goals are "to keep the Black Power Movement alive, defend the countless Africans locked up by the counterinsurgency, and develop relationships with Africa and Africans worldwide".[5]

Black Uhuru banner for chairman Yeshitela November 2024

Four leading members of the APSP, including its chairman Omali Yeshitela, were convicted in U.S. federal court of conspiring to act as unregistered foreign agents of the Russian government. They were found not guilty of acting as agents of Russia.[6] The four APSP leaders conspired with Aleksandr Ionov, the founder of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, to interfere in U.S. elections and sow social divisions in the United States. Prosecutors alleged Ionov was funded by the Russian government and had connections to Russian intelligence.[7][8][9]

Ideology

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The APSP is an African internationalist and African socialist organization. According to historian Harvey Klehr."[1][3]

According to its Constitution, the African People's Socialist Party is the "advanced detachment of the African working class and its general staff," pursuing the goal of "the liberation and unification of Africa and African people under the leadership of the African working class as a critical component of the struggle to overthrow imperialism."[10]

History

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In 1972, the APSP was created as a merger of three earlier Black organizations in Florida: the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), the Black Rights Fighters (BRF), and the Black Study Group (BSG). JOMO, the most influential of the three organizations, was a Black organization led by Omali Yeshitela that protested against racial discrimination, police brutality, and abuses against people of African descent in Florida. Yeshitela became the chairman of APSP.[2]

In 1979, the APSP established the African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC), an organization for European and European American "that works in solidarity with the struggle for African liberation and the unification of Africa and African people worldwide". The role of the APSC is to raise funds through donation campaigns and to carry out the economic development campaigns of the APSP.[citation needed]

Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida November 13, 2024. Building was being repainted

In September 1979, the party founded the African National Prison Organization (ANPO); the decision to form the ANPO was decided following a September 4, 1977 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. During the meeting, several Black nationalist organizations declared the importance of, and the need for developing greater unity between pro-Black independence and prison forces. It was decided that the ANPO "would be the gateway to building a national liberation front." Additionally, the participants at the meeting established five principles as the basis for forming the ANPO, which were self-determination, political independence, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and self-defense.[11]

In 1981, the APSP moved its national office from Florida to Oakland, California, and opened the Uhuru house.[2]

In 1982, the APSP held its party congress in Oakland. The APSP passed a resolution to create the African Socialist International (ASI), and which called for all African socialists to unite into one all-African socialist movement, with the eventual goal of one African state. Although ASI pursues pan-Africanism, its primary aim is socialist revolution led by the African working class.[12] The ASI seeks to be the "international party of the African working class".[13]

In 1982, the APSP founded the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO), which held the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People in Brooklyn, New York.[14] On its official website, the APSP claims that "through this work, the African People's Socialist Party gave birth to the modern Reparations Movement."[15] Authors Michael T. Martin and Marilyn Yaquinto however posit that, in the National Black Political Assembly's (NBPA) Black Agenda report published in 1974, the NBPA first "endorsed the concept of African American reparations." Citing Ida Hakim (Hakim, I. T., Reparations, the Cure for America's Race Problem. Hampton. Va.; U.B. and U.S. Communication System, 1994), the authors however went on to write that: "The African National Reparations Organization linked to the African People's Socialist Party has conducted yearly tribunals on U.S. racism since 1982 and demanded $4.1 trillion in reparations for stolen labor."[16] That financial reparation was initially demanded at the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People's 1982 meeting, which concluded that, "the United States owed $4.1 trillion for the crime of genocide against African Americans and the unpaid labor provided by them and their descendants during the period of slavery."[14] The stated objective of the movement is to obtain compensation for the injustices of slavery, as well as segregation and neocolonialism since then.[14][16] APSP chairman Omali Yeshitela has argued that African people worldwide are due reparations for more than slavery, but also over 500 years of colonialism and neocolonialism.[17]

In the mid-1990s, the party's national office moved back to St. Petersburg, Florida.[2]

2023 federal indictment

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The Uhuru Movement supports Russia's invasion and subsequent occupation of eastern Ukraine,[18][19] which it views from an anti-colonialist perspective as an appropriate response to what it perceives as NATO expansionism.[20] Members of the APSP and Uhuru Movement attended an anti-globalization conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.[21][19]

The APSP and its sister organization the Uhuru Movement were investigated by state prosecutors for allegedly collaborating with alleged Russian foreign agent Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to sow social divisions in the United States.[21] On April 18, 2023, a federal indictment was unsealed alleging that the Uhuru Movement, including the APSP founder and chairman Omali Yeshitela, worked on behalf of the Russian government to spread pro-Russian propaganda and influence local elections, without registering as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[22][23][24][25]

In a June 2023 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Yeshitela dismissed the charges as a baseless attempt by the Biden administration to limit free speech and thus stifle Ukraine war debate.[26]

Four leading members of the APSP, including its chairman Omali Yeshitela, were convicted in U.S. federal court of conspiring to act as unregistered foreign agents of the Russian government. They were found not guilty of acting as agents of Russia.[6] The APSP members conspired with Aleksandr Ionov, the founder of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, to interfere in U.S. elections and sow social divisions in the United States. Prosecutors alleged Ionov was funded by the Russian government and had connections to Russian intelligence.[7][8]

On December 16th, Omali Yeshitela, and two other defendants avoided prison time in the Uhuru-Russian case when U.S. District Judge William Jung sentenced them to three years of probation.[27]

Newspaper

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The Burning Spear Newspaper is a print and online newspaper, founded in 1968[3] by Omali Yeshitela as a newspaper for the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO).[28][29][30][31] In its organizational pamphlet, JOMO states that the acronym jomo translated means burning spear.[32] The Burning Spear's first issue was printed on December 22, 1969.[31] Since 1972, The Burning Spear has been published by the APSP.

The paper seeks to "bring voice to the most oppressed and exploited sectors of the African world", as well as combat "White Power imperialism", "media propaganda", and the "monopoly on the distribution of ideas".[33] The paper has published work by influential Black Power authors, including Assata Shakur.[34]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Klehr, Harvey (1988). Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today. Transaction Publishers. pp. 118–119. ISBN 9781412823432.
  2. ^ a b c d Shujaa, Mwalimu; Shujaa, Kenya (2015). The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781506300504.
  3. ^ a b c "The Burning Spear celebrates 50 years". The Weekly Challenger. December 20, 2018.
  4. ^ a b Elliott, Rory (November 21, 2018). "A Day of Reparations Stops in Portland". The Bridge.
  5. ^ "African People's Socialist Party-USA - History". asiuhuru.org. African People's Socialist Party. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  6. ^ a b "St. Petersburg Uhurus guilty of conspiracy, not guilty of acting as Russian agents". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  7. ^ a b Axelbank, Evan (2024-09-12). "Uhuru group convicted of conspiring with Russian agent, acquitted of acting on behalf of foreign government". FOX 13 News. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  8. ^ a b "Black rights activists convicted of conspiracy, not guilty of acting as Russian agents". AP News. 2024-09-12. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  9. ^ "Office of Public Affairs | U.S. Citizens and Russian Intelligence Officers Charged with Conspiring to Use U.S. Citizens as Illegal Agents of the Russian Government | United States Department of Justice". www.justice.gov. 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  10. ^ "APSP Constitution – The African People's Socialist Party". Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  11. ^ Umoja, Akinyele; Stanford, Karin L.; Young, Jasmin A.; Black Power Encyclopedia: From "Black is Beautiful" to Urban Uprisings, ABC-CLIO (2018), p. 811, ISBN 9781440840074 [1] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
  12. ^ "ASI resolution adopted at Party's First Congress". African Socialist International Website. Retrieved 2011-06-02.
  13. ^ Yeshitela, Omali. "Main Resolution (2004)". asiuhuru.org. African Socialist International. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  14. ^ a b c Araujo, Ana Lucia, Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History, Bloomsbury Publishing (2017), p. 159, ISBN 9781350010604 [2] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
  15. ^ The African People’s Socialist Party-USA official website. "History" : Founding of the African People's Socialist Party, [3] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
  16. ^ a b Martin, Michael T.; and Yaquinto, Marilyn; (contributors: Lyons, David; and Brown, Michael K.), Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States: On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies, Duke University Press (2007), p. 362, ISBN 9780822389811[4] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
  17. ^ "Reparations Now! We're Coming for What's Ours!". Archived from the original on April 5, 2007. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
  18. ^ Mazzei, Patricia (2022-07-29). "Russian National Charged With Spreading Propaganda Through U.S. Groups". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
  19. ^ a b "FBI investigating Russian interference possibly linked to St. Petersburg Uhuru Movement". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
  20. ^ "The Burning Spear". Archived from the original on 2023-06-05. Retrieved 2023-06-05.
  21. ^ a b "Russian charged with using US groups to spread propaganda". AP NEWS. 2022-07-29. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
  22. ^ Poirot, Collin P.; Shahshahani, Azadeh (25 April 2023). "The DOJ Is Using "Foreign Agents" Accusations to Repress Black Liberation Organizers". The Nation. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  23. ^ "St. Petersburg Uhuru members indicted in Russian influence case". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  24. ^ "US charges 4 Americans, 3 Russians in election discord case". AP NEWS. 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  25. ^ "U.S. issues fresh charges over alleged Moscow influence campaign". Reuters. 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  26. ^ Video on YouTube
  27. ^ Sullivan, Dan (December 16, 2024). "Last 3 defendants in Uhuru-Russian conspiracy case don't get prison". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  28. ^ "Uhuru Movement Dot Org :: Welcome to the Uhuru Movement!". Uhurumovement.org. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  29. ^ "African Socialist International - History". Asiuhuru.org. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  30. ^ "Celebrate 40 years of Black Power media - tune in May 5–6 to Uhuru News live". Indybay. 2012-05-02. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  31. ^ a b "Celebrate The Burning Spear! 47 years of Revolutionary print!". The Burning Spear. ISSN 0045-3552. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  32. ^ JOMO Uhuru (Pamphlet). St. Petersburg Florida: Junta of Militant Organizations. 1969. p. 1. OCLC 927307975.
  33. ^ "About". Uhuru News. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  34. ^ "Vintage Burning Spear newspaper (1969) on eBay". Assatashakur.org. 2011-07-28. Archived from the original on November 6, 2011. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
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