Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and one of the Uhuru 3, speaks at the 15th Annual Black People’s March on the White House, November 4, 2023.
Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa! Free Free Palestine! Victory to Palestine! Uhuru!
It is a great honor to be here today with the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace, and Reparations. We are here from the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM)–the organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and Chairman Omali Yeshitela–with the job to go back into our own white communities and win other white people, other colonizers, settlers like ourselves to stand in solidarity with African people inside this country and around the world; with the Palestinian people, with Indigenous people, with all colonized and oppressed peoples around the world–fighting for national liberation and the destruction of colonialism.
We salute our leadership, Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Deputy Chair Ona Zené Yeshitela, and the African People’s Socialist Party. We salute Chairwoman Penny Hess, the chair of APSC who is also one of the Uhuru 3 and has been working under the Party’s leadership to build white solidarity with Black Power for over 47 years, Uhuru!
We salute the courageous resistance of the people of Palestine. Our job as USM is to expose other white people to the understanding that as Chairman Omali Yeshitela teaches us, there would be no USA without the enslavement of African people, kidnapping of African people, turning African human beings to commodities, without the genocide against the Indigenous people and the theft of their land. It was this process that brought wealth, power, democracy, and prosperity to us, as white people–on the pedestal of the oppression and colonial domination of African, Indigenous, and colonized peoples. We believe the United States government, the governments of Europe, the banks, and the corporations owe reparations to African people.
We also believe that all white people owe reparations to African people. All white people sit on the pedestal of the oppression of African people and have benefitted historically and continue to today in the stolen labor, life, land, and resources of Africa. We have not been innocent bystanders to this process. It has been white working people who have been at the frontline of carrying out lynchings against African people and indigenous people historically to secure our place on the pedestal.
As Comrade Lisa Davis has pointed out, for over 100 years in this country, no white person was ever indicted for lynching an African, for hanging an African human being from a tree, for burning an African man alive, for mutilating them in festivals of sadism and violence. Yet when for the first time, white people are won to work under the leadership of African liberation and fight for reparations to African people, they get indicted. But we are clear: the primary target of this attack is Chairman Omali Yeshitela. They are not attempting to imprison him because they truly believe he is an agent of Russia. They know he is an agent of Black Power, of Africa, and of African people. They are attacking him for the same reason they attacked Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and the Black Panther Party. Because he and the African Revolution represent the vanguard of all oppressed peoples worldwide.
White people who are truly anti-imperialist, who are indeed for socialism and liberation, we cannot walk over the bodies of African people, of the Indigenous people, of colonized people in this country where we, like the Israeli Jews, are colonial settlers on stolen occupied land. We cannot walk over the bodies of African people or past their righteous resistance movements to pretend we have sympathy for the Palestinian people. That is not the answer. If we are genuinely for Palestine, we recognize Palestine is right here. This is the original settler colonial empire. Any white person who truly stands for victory for the Palestinian people starts by standing in solidarity with the Black Revolution and the African Revolution, under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party.
We are honored to be here with the reparations contingent. If you are a white person, march with the reparations contingent today. Let’s go behind the leadership of Black Power and demand the U.S. government drop the charges against the Uhuru 3.
Hands off, Chairman Omali Yeshitela!
Victory to Palestine! Unity through Reparations!
Uhuru!
