The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) opened February 2023 with its membership drive. InPDUM then closed February 2023 with a series of African Martyrs Day commemorations. In 1981, the African People’s Socialist Party designated February 21, “The Day of the African Martyr.”
Both the membership drive and African Martyrs Day events are politically linked to each other. African Martyrs Day asks Africans to live like our African Martyrs. InPDUM was created to defend the democratic rights of the African community and bring the masses of African people back into political life after the military defeat of the African Revolution.
InPDUM is an organization through which the masses of African people can live like our African Martyrs.
InPDUM’s history honors Little Bobby Hutton and other African martyrs
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, a significant moment in the United States’ military assault against the African Revolution of the 1960s. InPDUM was formed in 1991 on the 23rd anniversary of the April 6, 1968 assassination of Little Bobby Hutton of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, where Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were slain.
InPDUM has taken many forms over the years. As noted, InPDUM’s founding conference was April 6, 1991 in Chicago, Illinois. Then we were known as the National People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (NPDUM). As our organization expanded into Europe and Africa, it became InPDUM. InPDUM was massive at that time and its reach was far.
In addition to the 1991 formation of NPDUM. InPDUM is the outgrowth of a long history of Uhuru Movement mass organizing. The origins of InPDUM can be found in Chairman Omali Yeshitela’s formation of the first membership-based chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1966, the 1968 formation of the Junta of Militant Organizations which joined with the Fort Myers’s Black Rights Fighters, the Gainesville Black Study group to form The Party in 1972, the People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement and other organizations.
The membership drive puts InPDUM on the offense
Understanding our place in African history is an important part of taking InPUM into the world.
InPDUM meets Africans at their political doors, wherever they are: on campus, at work, at home, on your local sports team, in your club or organizations. InPDUM cedes no territory to the colonizers and African petty bourgeoisie.
In 1977, Chairman Omali laid out the seven steps towards winning African Liberation. Point One and Point Two were to win Africans to the position of independence and then establish leadership of the independence struggle. InPDUM is central to winning this struggle.
Amidst the successive FBI attacks against the Uhuru Movement since July 2022, our membership drive puts us on the offense.
The Hands Off Uhuru Campaign underscored the importance of African Martyrs Day
At the first Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party in September 1981, APSP designated February 21 as “The Day of the African Martyr.”
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965 by agents of United States repression and counterinsurgency. On African Martyrs Day we uplift those Africans who, in many ways, gave their lives for the freedom of African people. We also recognize that all Africans who die under colonialism have been martyred.
Amidst the historical importance of the Hands Off Uhuru Hands Off Africa counteroffensive that we have waged, this year’s African Martyrs Day took on an even deeper significance.
We must recognize that the July 29, 2022 raids against Chairman Omali Yeshitela and other leaders, homes and offices of the Uhuru Movement, this was done with the full intent of martyring Chairman Omali Yeshitela and other leaders.
We also know that the prison time they would give Chairman Omali Yeshitela would effectively be a death sentence.
InPDUM organized African Martyrs Day 2023 activities around the world
InPDUM organized a variety of events including community rallies, film screening and community forums for African Martyrs Day.
On February 21, InPDUM Portland held outreach at a local art exhibit where they showed a film on the 1996 Battle of St. Pete, spoke on Black Community Control of the Police and garnered community support for the Hands Off Uhuru campaign.
On February 23 InPDUM held a virtual African Martyrs Day study on Zoom and Facebook. Participants viewed “Upright Man”, a documentary on Thomas Sankara, and discussed the film in relation to the Revolutionary National Democratic Program.
On February 26, InPDUM San Diego screened the motion picture “Lumumba” (2000) as part of their Black Working Class Film Series and Community Discussion. As well, InPDUM St. Louis organized an African Martyrs Day Black Community Rally at the Uhuru House.
InPDUM members participated in the February 25 Hands Off Uhuru webinar, “Long Live Our Fallen Warriors: Day of the African Martyr”. Excerpts of the HOU webinar was turned into an episode of InPDUM’s podcast Black Power Talks.
InPDUM turned this African Martyrs Day into a month-long observance, extending it into March. On March 4, InPDUM organized the Mafundi Lake Day in Birmingham, Alabama and did outreach in Selma on March 5. On March 11, InPDUM South Africa in Kokomo (Fochville) organized a study and did outreach as well.
InPDUM must continue to win the African masses
Chairman noted in his 2022 political report, much of “the African working class is thrust into a kind of barely visible urban nomadic lifestyle” where gentrification, forced removals, employment uncertainty and “colonial economic relief and welfare services are strategically located to engender perennial instability”.
Membership in InPDUM places the transformation that we need in the hands of African people. It sustains the organization and creates the forces that takes our programs out into the world.
New members can join InPDUM for only $5 during this membership drive. As well, in a revolutionary “5 for 5” deal, current members can get a free membership renewal when they recruit five new members.
Revive and complete the African Revolution!
Life like our African Martyrs!
