Culture

The terrible impact that slavery has had on the continent of Africa cannot be calculated: the destruction of magnificent civilizations, the break-up of family and kinship circles, the massive depopulation, forced impoverishment, famine and starvation, the ravishing of an environment which had been so conducive to human civilization for millennia. From open, educated, prosperous and democratic societies, African people now lived in sheer terror, never knowing when their village or town would be raided for human loot by these white invaders.

ST. PETERSBURG––The Tampa Bay Times released an article Tuesday, June 28th titled, “St. Petersburg committee will invite Uhuru leader's input to replace mural he tore down 50 years ago.”

This piece discussed Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and the the Uhuru Movement, ripping a anti-African mural from the walls of St. Pete’s City Hall 50 years ago on December 29, 1966.

That date in 1966 marks what could be the first time the world saw the slogan “black power” actualize.

Even though, then-U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 proclaiming, “That all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free,” captured Africans remained in the forcible custody of white people in Texas until June 19, 1865.

Many Africans in the U.S. are preparing to celebrate Juneteenth, the holiday that remembers that day in 1865.