“The future for white people is in African liberation,” Chairman Omali Yeshitela explained to the audience gathered for the Day in Solidarity with African People at the St. Petersburg, Florida Uhuru House on October 24. The Uhuru House in St. Petersburg is the International headquarters of the Uhuru Movement.
The Days in Solidarity with African People calls on white people to abandon the dead-end movement against “racism,” which is simply the ideas in white people’s heads.
A call to go beyond "fighting racism"
The challenge is to stand in solidarity with the movement of Africans as an oppressed nation of people, struggling for political power over their lives through liberation from U.S. colonial domination. That way, as the Chairman clarified, “We will have the power to prevent anyone with racist ideas from ever harming us again.”
The Day in Solidarity with African People is the annual campaign of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) held as a tribute of reparations to African people from the North American (white) population.
The St. Petersburg Day in Solidarity was the last of the month-long series of events held during October in six U.S. cities including Oakland and San Diego, California; Miami, Gainesville and St. Petersburg, Florida and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) are organizations of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party that leads the Uhuru Movement.
The Days in Solidarity events were preceded by months of outreach tabling on busy thoroughfares in white communities, where USM organizers raised the critical issues of how white people can take part in changing the world by building genuine solidarity with the movement for African Liberation.
The USM comrades called on other white people to sign “The Pledge of Solidarity,” which acknowledges the fact that the U.S. is built on the enslavement of African people, a reality that is the basis for the oppression that African people face today.
During the tabling hundreds of people signed the pledge sheets in the various locations and scores became new members of USM by paying the $25 basic membership or $10 student fee.
The Uhuru Solidarity Movement raised $20,000 for the work of the African People’s Socialist Party through new memberships, including sustainer level memberships, fundraising appeals at the solidarity events and numerous other fundraisers including a music benefit featuring popular bands in Miami.
Across the U.S., campaign on fire
This year’s campaign opened up with the Day in Solidarity in Oakland, held at the Kehilla Community Synagogue on Grand Avenue. An enthusiastic audience heard presentations by Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson, the uncle of slain African youth, Oscar Grant, who was shot in the back by Oakland area police on January 1, 2009 as he sat on the ground handcuffed, at the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit Station.
With Chairman Omali giving the keynote in Oakland, other presenters included Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, Umi Hagatani of the Japan Pacific Resource Network and the Ghetto Prophet of the Onyx Organizing Committee.
The Oakland event was coordinated by a USM team including Wendy Snyder, Cara Locke and Todd Hunter. Twelve new USM members were gained from the Oakland event.
From Oakland the Chairman traveled to San Diego where he and APSC Chairwoman Penny Hess spoke at San Diego State University and at a community event held at the World Beat Center the following day.
The Chairman also addressed the classes of Professor Thekima Mayasa at Mesa College and students of Neto Bustillos at METro (Project New Start). Bustillos is the son of Ernesto Bustillos, the late leader of Union del Barrio and the struggle for the liberation of Mexican people in the U.S.
The events in San Diego were organized by Wendy Craig of USM and Jah Sun Kine, President of the San Diego InPDUM.
Uhuru Solidarity Movement organizers Kefira Baron, Kotu Bajaj and Ashley Maclaren, held in Miami for the first time, Days in Solidarity with African People Benefit Show at Churchill’s Pub.
With nine local bands and musicians on the bill playing in support of African liberation, the show drew a large crowd that raised funds for programs of African self-determination and economic development of the Uhuru Movement.
Before the show, organizers, musicians and other members of the community assembled for a delicious vegan potluck where Kefira and USM St. Pete's Jesse Nevel gave presentations about the DSAP Campaign, gaining two members into USM and winning support for the African liberation struggle.
At the same time, USM was hitting the concrete in Gainesville, Florida. Dianne Tornay and Nicole Gilbo engaged in outreach tables, postering, leafleting and speaking out at demonstrations to win support for the "Days in Solidarity with African People" campaign.
Comrades Dianne and Nicole built a community viewing of the film "Rosewood" about the white lynch mob massacre of the thriving black town near Gainesville in the 1920s. Dianne and Nicole engaged community members in a challenging discussion of the history of white colonial violence that reared its head in Rosewood and continues today through the police and vigilante killings of African people that occurs every 28 hours in this country.
On October 19, the USM Gainesville forces hosted a powerful DSAP event at the Civic Media Center, featuring speakers Chairwoman Penny Hess of the APSP and Chimurenga Waller, leading veteran member of the African People's Socialist Party. The comrades' work to build DSAP campaign has served as the spark in Gainesville that will resonate as we continue to build the USM in that city.
Grand finale
Finally on October 24 the grand finale event of the nationwide DSAP campaign was held at the international headquarters of the APSP, the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg.
Speaking to a room of veteran members and supporters along with an array of new forces, Chairman Omali delivered a keynote presentation that summarized some of the key theoretical points of his nearly released Political Report to the 6th Congress of the African People's Socialist Party.
The Chairman showed how the system of parasitic capitalism that enslaved millions of African people and destroyed advanced civilizations is also responsible for the anxiety, doubt and fear of the white oppressor nation population, a society riven by a host of contradictions from student loan debt to rampant drug abuse.
Chairman Omali's words inspired the crowd with the positive vision of a future without parasitism and imperialism, a world in which African workers and peasants are free and self-determining.
The audience responded not only with applause, but by joining the Uhuru Solidarity Movement as sustaining members, donating towards the programs of the Party, and registering for the much anticipated Party's 6th Congress.
The Uhuru Solidarity Movement calls on all white people to join under the leadership of the African working class in their struggle for liberation, self-determination, and reparations.
Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement at uhurusolidarity.org and get active in your community today.
Register for the 6th Congress of the African People's Socialist Party to be held on December 7-11 in St. Petersburg, FL at asiuhuru.org.
Long live the African Liberation Movement! Reparations Now!
Solidarity, Not Charity!
