Harlem, NY—African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela swept through New York and Newark over the weekend of July 20 and 21 as part of his 2013 international tour that is building for the Party’s Sixth Congress December 7-11.
Despite the region’s blistering heat wave, African people of all walks of life poured out to hear the equally fiery presentations by Chairman Omali expressing their appreciation with enthusiastic standing ovations.
Coming just a week after the verdict that acquitted George Zimmerman of the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the Northeast tour proves that African Internationalism, our Party’s theory of practice, is being recognized as the only thing that makes sense of the reality faced by African people in this country and around the world today.
The weekend opened with a Party booth promoting the Chairman’s books at the Harlem Book Fair on W. 135th Street and Malcolm X Blvd in Harlem in front of the Schomburg Center for Black Research.
Northeast Party and InPDUM comrades had a strong presence at the book fair, staffing the booth and working in with the crowd selling numerous books and copies of The Burning Spear newspaper.
The comrades also signed up scores of contacts interested in learning more about the Party and the upcoming Party Congress in December.
During the fair, the Chairman spoke from the author’s stage.
A crowd gathered as the Chairman boldly challenged neocolonialism and the hold that U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama and other misleaders such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have had on the African community since the defeat of the Black Revolution of the 1960s.
Later that evening, African people and our allies—many of whom were activists throughout the area—descended on St Mary’s Church on 124th Street in Harlem hungry to hear the Chairman’s brilliant analysis of the current situation in the world and the way forward for African and oppressed peoples.
In his presentation Chairman Omali brought the audience with him as he addressed the deeper theoretical questions.
The Chairman exposed Marx’s and Lenin’s critical theoretical flaws even as he assessed their revolutionary importance.
He showed how, despite their search for the science of how capitalism and imperialism would be defeated, both of the 20th century leaders were locked into a Eurocentric worldview that failed to grasp that it would be African and colonized workers who must lead the struggle, not European workers sitting on a pedestal of our exploitation and colonial extraction.
The Chairman showed how capitalism was built through imperialism, not the other way around as stated by Lenin.
Capitalism was born through Europe’s assault on Africa, the Chairman asserted. Europe was poor and oppressed under the system of feudalism for a thousand years during which the only ones with property, wealth and rights were the lords of the castle.
Most white people were nothing but impoverished serfs, tied to the land. “It was the assault on Africa and the enslavement of African people, turning us into commodities, that changed all that and brought wealth into Europe—to both the ruling class and the white workers!”
The audience leapt to their feet in appreciation of the Chairman’s profound presentation.
Also speaking at the dynamic event were Black is Back Coalition Vice-President and Black Agenda Report Editor Glen Ford, along with Jose Lasalle of the Stop Stop and Frisk organization, Luiz Hernandez of the Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee and Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee.
Lisa Davis, Chair of the African Health Working Group of the Black is Back Coalition gave a powerful message on behalf of the Campaign to Free Lynne Stewart, the attorney currently locked down for her support for oppressed peoples. The U.S. government refuses to release her despite the fact that she is suffering from advanced cancer.
On Sunday afternoon, Chairman Omali again electrified his audience at the Source of Knowledge Bookstore in Newark, NJ.
Speaking to a group of African people made up of every age group, the Chairman’s compelling presentation began with an understanding of the U.S. government’s COINTELPRO attack on the African Revolution of the 60s.
In the 60s, the Chairman explained, African people turned our backs on the U.S. government. U.S. imperialism was ideologically defeated.
Our movement was crushed by a U.S. counterinsurgency assault that assassinated our leaders and destroyed our revolutionary organizations. It left the key ideological and theoretical questions of the time unanswered.
The African People’s Socialist Party survived the counterinsurgency and pushed on to continue to develop our theory as we immersed ourselves in political work to return the aspirations of the African working class back on the political agenda again.
Over the years, Chairman Omali and our Party have solved the pressing questions facing African people around the world today.
In his Newark presentation, the Chairman took on every issue in rapid fire, including neocolonialism and the role of imperialist white power-selected Barack Hussein Obama.
The Chairman called out those “who carried the water for Obama,” and expounded on the questions of the African nation, the colonial state, the issue of racism versus colonialism and the struggle for power and national liberation in our own hands.
In discussing the many single-issue organizations trying to address the numerous problems facing African people in our communities, the Chairman asked “To what end?”
Many from the audience nodded in response to this question, as the Chairman emphasized that like Marcus Garvey’s movement of the 1920s, African people today need one organization that will liberate Africa and African people everywhere under the leadership of the African working class.
The Newark event opened up with a brilliant tribute to Chairman Omali Yeshitela from Glen Ford, who acknowledged the Chairman as a leader and theoretician who could go shoulder to shoulder with Marx.
Black is Back Heath Committee Chair Lisa Davis also spoke as well as Professor Jah Jah Shakur from the Essex County Community College and Penny Hess of the African People’s Solidarity Committee.
Activists Amiri and Amina Baraka attended the event as did Lawrence Hamm, the leader of the Newark-based People’s Organization for Progress.
The African People’s Socialist Party and our mass organizations are clearly building a strong base in the Northeast region under the leadership of Comrade Diop Olugbala, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, who has been a powerful organizer in the region in this period.
Others who played a key role in building the Northeast tour were Local Party Organizer and InPDUM Membership Director Ushindi Watu and Black is Back Coalition leader Waleeah Brooks, both based in Newark.
From Brooklyn, InPDUM members Oronde Takuma, Fyc and Marquita Grant contributed greatly to the success of these important events.
Clearly, African people everywhere are hungry for the analysis and leadership that the Chairman and our Party bring to our movement and the history of 41 years of tireless struggle and campaigns fighting for the revolutionary aspirations of the African working class.
To find out more about participating in the Sixth Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party, Dec. 7-11, 2013, visit: www.asiuhuru.org
Bring Chairman Omali Yeshitela to your campus or town during his 2013 tour, for details visit: www.omaliyeshitela.org
