North America

On May 28, 2020, the first known organized demonstrations against the murder of George Floyd in the city of St. Petersburg, Florida was led by the African People’s Socialist Party’s (APSP) Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai. The demonstration took place right outside the St. Petersburg Police Department (SPPD) with around 30 demonstrators. The Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) also mobilized forces in solidarity for the event.

In 1893, Ida B. Wells exposed the links between the white nationalist mobs and the police in “Southern Horror: Lynch Law In All Its Phases.” Wells famously wrote, “Those who commit the murders write the reports.”

If the coronavirus pandemic underscores anything, it is the absolute necessity for African people to unite in our historic mission to once again become a self determining, self-governing people.

The following presentation was made by Chairman Omali Yeshitela at a press conference held on June 15, 2020 by the Uhuru Movement in response to the St. Petersburg city council’s proposal to hang a plaque on the blank wall in city hall to replace an offensive anti-African, white nationalist mural that the Chairman tore down during a demonstration in 1966.

The intensity of the spontaneous African resistance across the U.S. in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis impacted more than U.S. society. The whole world has enthusiastically expressed solidarity with Africans in the U.S. against police oppression.

The means of production are not in the hands of the colonized workers of the world. The safety of working-class Africans is not in the hands of African communities. 

United States—On June 13 and 14, 2020, The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIBC) held our 4th Electoral Campaign School, themed “The Ballot and The Bullet: Putting Self-Determination on the Ballot!”

Over 3.5 million known cases of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, have been reported in the United States, making up over a quarter of the more than 14 million known infections worldwide.

“This is an institution founded in blood, the blood of black people!” These words, spoken by Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), echoed through downtown St. Petersburg, Florida on Friday morning, June 12, 2020.