Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) is on a worldwide Pre-Congress Tour to promote the Sixth Congress of the APSP.
The Sixth Congress of our Party will occur in St. Petersburg, Florida from December 7–11, 2013.
Every three years the African People’s Socialist Party is required by our Constitution to turn over the affairs and direction of our Party to its membership through the convening of our Congress, the highest body of the Party.
The Congress is where the most important policies and the general direction of the Party are democratically determined, where the most important leaders of the Party are elected and the general line and strategy of the Party are developed and ratified.
It is at the Party Congress that leaders of our Party are required to report to the membership, thereby validating their leading positions through an examination of their work.
The Congress work justifies the right of the Party’s elected leadership and our general membership to demand unflinching unity and steeled discipline in the work to win the liberation and socialist unification of Africa and African people worldwide.
The five day Congress will include culture and music, guest solidarity from anti-imperialist groups around the world, discussions, question and answer on the Political Report to the 6th Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party, workshops, reports from APSP leadership and each area of the Uhuru Movement, a banquet and much more.
Midwest Pre-Congress Tour: Milwaukee
The Midwest pre-Congress Tour began on Thursday, October 3 at the Milwaukee Brotherhood of Firefighters.
Diop Olugbala, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM), along with Eyon Biddle, a former alderman of Milwaukee’s 15th District, led the panel discussion titled “The Ballot or the Bullet, electoral politics in the Black Community.”
Both shared experience in running for office. Diop ran for Mayor of Philadelphia in 2011, gaining 8000 votes, a record high for an independent candidate.
Eyon Biddle recalled his experience of hardships and roadblocks in trying to serve the needs of the African masses while in office.
Diop discussed the possibilities of using the familiar electoral system to engage the masses in a struggle for community control of their lives and neighborhoods. We must make the most use of the available democratic space as possible in order to advance the revolutionary struggle in the interests of African people.
The Chairman closed by exposing the true interests and history of African people.” If we got on the boat in Africa as Africans, how did we get off the boat in Virginia as Negroes? We are all Africans!”
Pre-Congress Tour: Chicago
On Friday, October 4, Chairman Omali Yeshitela revisited Chicago with an amazing presentation of “the Black Power Movement, Then and Now” at the House of Culture. He explained the significance of the military defeat of the Black Power Movement of the ‘60s, and our tasks for today.
In an intimate setting, Chairman Yeshitela then took questions from the crowd.
Also at the event, a cultural presentation by Brother Molejo displayed the African origins of Capoeira. He moved to the rhythm of the berimbau instrument and performed kicks and other movements of Capoeira with his team.
On Saturday, October 5, a conference was held entitled “Violence and Occupation of the African community; How do we heal?” where the State-imposed violence was correctly summed up and shown as the violence rained down from the State, which impoverishes, jails, patrols, frisks, and murders Africans in the streets and in the legal death chambers.
The first panel, titled “Restoration and Revitalization” featured Marissa Johnson of the Washington Park Freedom School and J.R. Fleming of the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign. They fight for schooling and housing amidst a sea of closed schools and foreclosed homes concentrated in African neighborhoods.
Nate Gilliam of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) and Kamm Howard of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and of the Amos Wilson Institute spoke on panel entitled “Restoring the African Economy.”
The Violence and Occupation panel was next. It featured Korvell Curry of InPDUM, who shared his real-life experience of colonial treatment by police and in the Cabrini Green housing projects. Daphne Jackson of InPDUM, as well as Jeff Baker of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, spoke about ending police abuse, torture and murder.
Barbera Baker of N’COBRA gave a presentation on restoring physical and mental health on the Healing panel.
The Hip Hop Meets Black Power panelists were Anumbus Rah, Founder of Ghuttahouse Records & Metro Exchange online magazine and Zenobia Spencer of InPDUM on building the Black Power Movement to control today’s music.
The evening closed with question and answer, and Chaiman Omali Yeshitela explaining how African Internationalism is key in solving our ailments and gaining our freedom.
Moving Forward
Chicago is home to a host of Uncle Tom leadership, including Obama, Jesse Jackson and his imprisoned son, and now even Al Sharpton residing here. We must go through them and all others who protect the colonial masters to get to the imperialists who impose misery on African lives.
Objectively, they are the African petty bourgeoisie. Their idea of liberation is for Africans to “act right” and to suffer peacefully, leaving the worldwide parasite white empire intact.
African working class power is the solution to all of our ailments. The only power we have is in each other, the masses of African people working in our own interests for what’s rightfully ours.
The white empire is what created, spotlighted, and presented forcibly, these house negro clowns as the only option for improving the lives of our people.
We must pierce the cloud of created confusion and get active on a revolutionary national democratic program, a program that offers a real solution to the imposed misery on our lives and for freedom.
The Midwest leg of the Chairman Omali Yeshitela Tour served to build for the 6th Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party, so that African people can strategize under revolutionary principles for a united and self-determining African people.
This pre-Congress Tour is a Call to members and supporters of the African People’s Socialist Party to close ranks with the Party to build the 6th Congress of our Party.
We know that no oppressed people in history have ever won liberation without first creating an organization of steeled cadres with unflinching commitment to liberation.
Our Congress is the gathering place for these cadres and others we would have join our ranks.
The Party Congress is one of our proudest accomplishments, not only for what it means for our Party, but also for what it means for the advancement of our struggle for liberation and socialist unification as a continent and as a nation.
It is the work that should mobilize all Africans, all oppressed peoples and all our allies that are committed to a different world where the oppressed and the exploited will become the new rulers of a world in transition to a society without national oppression and class exploitation.
Forward to the Sixth Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party!
Build the African People’s Socialist Party!
Communities Under Siege! Violence and Occupation part 1
Communities Under Siege! Violence and Occupation part 2
Communities Under Siege! Violence and Occupation part 3. Chairman Omali Yeshitela
