The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) is a revolutionary mass organization under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). InPDUM was formed to bring the masses of African people back into political life after the military defeat of the Black Power movement. Our motto is “self-determination is the highest form of democracy.”
April is an important time for us to reflect on the long and recent history of InPDUM. This April, InPDUM celebrates two important points of its origins. The People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (PDUM) was formed in Oakland, California in April 1985. That local organization was consolidated as a U.S.-wide organization in 1991 as the National People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (NPDUM). As NPDUM established branches in Canada and Europe, and eventually Occupied Azania (South Africa), the name was officially changed to InPDUM.
In 1994, a resolution was brought to the NPDUM convention in Chicago to “Build an International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement which will struggle for the national democratic rights of oppressed people throughout the world.” This was realized in the official adoption of the name InPDUM at the 2001 convention in St. Petersburg, Florida.
InPDUM is now in 20 states and 70 cities in the United States. We are on three continents—North America, Africa, and Europe—as well as in the Caribbean. InPDUM is in ten countries, including Sierra Leone, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland, and Occupied Azania.
Led by Comrades Tafarie Mugeri, Asa Anpu, and Zakhele Mkhonza, our branches in Occupied Azania reflect some of our most intense work. They provide an example for the way forward for all of our branches and local organizing committees with their struggles against colonialism and neocolonialism.
As the leading mass organization for the struggle for democratic rights of African people around the world, the time is ripe for the growth and expansion of InPDUM.
Born out of the struggle for democratic rights and Black community control
InPDUM is the result of a long history of Uhuru Movement mass organizing.
In April 1977, Chairman Omali Yeshitela spoke to the Black Organizers Conference at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. In this speech, the Chairman outlined the role of revolutionary leadership in mass movements. This speech became the movement-changing document, “The Political Aspects of Building a Mass Movement: The Tactical and Strategic Objectives for Black Liberation.” The first two points of the seven steps of winning African liberation that Chairman laid out were: (1) to win Black people to the position of political independence, and (2) to establish the leadership of the pro-independence movement.
In the late 1970s, the APSP formed its first mass organization, the African National Prison Organization (ANPO). Following that was the creation of the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO). By the early 1980s, the dominant political trends of the parties of the colonial ruling class—the Democrats and the Republicans—reflected much of the contemporary status quo.
Chairman has noted that then-President Ronald Reagan rose to power with the promise to “Make America Great Again.” Reagan had made his mark with massive cutbacks and layoffs. Following the first APSP Congress in 1981, the Party responded with the campaign for Bread, Peace, and Black Power by declaring “They Say Cut Back, We Say Payback!”
This strategy opposed the liberal-left defensive posture that keeps Africans tethered to the colonial-state’s welfare programs. Following the very successful Community Control of Housing Campaign in 1984, we created the People’s Democratic Platform (PDP) in April 1985 and the PDUM.
From the People’s Democratic Platform to the Revolutionary National Democratic Program
The PDP was a five-point program (later extended to seven points) that outlined democratic demands. This included employment, Black community control of the police, a pushback against the drug war waged on the African community, the rescinding of new designer drug and “tough on crime” laws that attacked the constitutional rights of the African poor and workers, and reparations.
PDUM, as well as other defense committees such as the African Community Defense Committee (ACDC) organized by the Party in the late 1980s and early 1990s, led to the consolidation of these efforts into NPDUM. NPDUM was formed six years after PDUM, in Chicago, Illinois on April 6, 1991. April 6, 1991, marked the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of Little Bobby Hutton, the youngest founding member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, on April 6, 1968. Chicago was also the site of the assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark on December 4, 1969.
These murders marked the bookends of the U.S. counterinsurgency war intended to crush the struggle for African independence. PDUM, NPDUM, and InPDUM represent the resurgence of the fighting capacity of the African community to act in our own self-interest.
Our work continues, join today
Chairman’s address to the 1991 NPDUM founding convention laid the political trajectory for InPDUM. We also see its impact on the work of ANWO and AAPDEP. InPDUM was created in defense of the African community as part of a process to expose and defeat the counterinsurgency. It has been exposed and we have dealt it a major defeat with the victories of the Hands Off Uhuru Campaign.
The work of InPDUM at this moment is guided by our 7-point program, the Revolutionary National Democratic Program (RNDP). The RNDP places us on the offensive against colonialism.
In New York, InPDUM has organized a campaign in defense of Derrell Mickles, the African who defended himself against the NYPD on the subway. They are also challenging neocolonial politicians. In St. Louis, our Sunday rallies give voice to the African working class. In Southern California, we lead in the call for Black Community Control of Education. In South Africa, Project Thuthukani is placing the redevelopment of the townships in the handChairman Omali Yeshitela speaks at the 1989 Founding Convention of the People’s Democratic
Uhuru Movement. p PHOTO: THE BURNING SPEARs of the African working class. In Chicago and St. Petersburg, we continue to lead the struggle for reparations to African people.
InPDUM is the organization the African working class needs. It is our duty to take it to them.
Join InPDUM today at inpdum.org/join
Attend our studies at tinyurl.com/rndpstudies
View our weekly community rallies at youtube.com/uhurutv
