“Once I got my unemployment check, the first thing I did was donate to Uhuru Furniture. It’s so much more than a store! It is building the rising liberated economy in the hands of the African community. Everyone has a stake in this institution continuing to thrive!” This was the comment by Cota after she contributed to the Uhuru Furniture GoFundMe site at UhuruFurniture.org.
Cota is just one of Uhuru Furniture’s enthusiastic donors! We have received an outpouring of support and generosity from furniture donors, shoppers, volunteers, friends and members of our movement.
Numbers are going up every hour! But we have just begun. We call on you and everyone to donate and share the site with your friends to keep us moving forward!
Independent African community economic development institutions
Uhuru Furniture & Collectibles stores (UFC), open for 31 years in Oakland CA and 26 years in Philadelphia, have shown the way forward to a liberated economy by providing top quality, low priced furniture and housewares, jobs, job training and volunteer opportunities for people of all walks of life.
For the safety of our staff and community we had to close our doors and lay off all of our staff and independent contractors during the Coronavirus shutdown.
Uhuru Furniture is so loved by the people because we carry out the mission of the African People’s Education and Defense Fund (APEDF) the non-profit that defends African human and civil rights and transforms and uplifts the lives of our community. UFC is a living example of African economic self-reliance and self-determination.
UFC is a cultural hub hosting programs including the Uhuru Health Festivals, Book Fairs and Markets that provide free health and education resources for the community and income for hundreds of vendors and their families. These are now postponed right when people need them the most.
UFC helps fund the Black Power Blueprint project which is pushing back gentrification and renovating the northside of St. Louis
We are a green business that saves thousands of tons of furniture from landfills by picking up and reselling gently used furniture. We also repurpose pieces into beautiful works of art through our NZO line, “African Styles at Home and Abroad”.
This pandemic is devastating our community
Even before COVID-19 our community suffered from poverty, unemployment, homelessness and lack of access to healthcare and healthy food. Now all these colonial conditions are worse than ever. We’re the ones who are either unemployed or working at the “essential jobs” without protective gear.
Africans and Indigenous people are infected and dying of COVID-19 at disproportionately higher rates than any other community.
Crisis in the system that was built to make profit with no interest in providing for the people
The U.S. parasitic capitalist economy is in freefall! The unemployment rate is over 20 percent with a record 26.5 million recently unemployed. (Fortune 4/23/2020) The Stock Market is plummeting despite the U.S. government pumping in trillions of dollars.
The hedge funds and big corporations are taking the government grants which were supposed to go to small businesses. The tiny percentage of African businesses that did exist are being eviscerated. This was the strategy of the capitalist class all along.
This is how we change the world
As Chairman Omali Yeshtiela says, the liberated African workers economy is on the rise and is constructing the only solution to feed, clothe and house the people. Uhuru Furniture, along with the 50 other institutions of African self-determination will fill the gap to meet the needs of our people and we welcome everyone to be part of this.
The Uhuru Movement is activating the new economic system that benefits our whole community, not at our expense.
We urgently need your donations so we can continue to stand as the beacon of a new African-led economy, a future of self-reliance and self-determination and reopen strong!
Donate Today at our GoFundMe/Charity uhurufurniture.org
Visit Uhuru Furniture Philly’s blog and Uhuru Furniture Oakland’s blog
Defend the institutions for black self-determination!
