It has been said that freedom of the press belongs only to those who own and control it; and it is with the understanding that the African working class had to have its own voice and be able to define the world around it that we began publishing The Burning Spear newspaper in 1968.
First published by the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO) and then by the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) after its 1972 founding, The Spear remains the oldest African revolutionary newspaper in continuous publication.
Its significance is not only in its age, however. Its greatest significance is in the fact that it is one of the tools with which the APSP is consciously engaged in a war of ideas with imperialist white power.
The Burning Spear speaks from the interests of the African working class who, if we are going to have a future, will have to end the relationship where all our work and all our resources go to build wealth for white power and white people at our expense.
This puts us in direct opposition to the mainstream media that represent the interests of white power, despite their claims of objectivity. Imperialism has a monopoly on the production and distribution of ideas whether through the newspapers, radio and television or through the schools, movies and even on billboards.
Those ideas justify the status quo. They tell us that things are as they should be. They tell us that there is no connection between white wealth and the poverty that the rest of us suffer.
They tell us that all the world’s wealth is supposed to be in the hands of white people while the rest of the world struggles to live on little more than one dollar a day.
However, our objective is to understand the world and all these relationships the way that they really are so that we can change them.
For decades The Spear has been the voice of the African revolution, and the history of our struggle from the Black Power Movement of the Sixties to its defeat and the subsequent African demoralization caused by the counterinsurgency to the recent reemergence of worldwide resistance, can be marked through the pages of The Spear.
The Spear followed alongside the work being done by the Party in the streets and, at the Party’s best times, its distribution has been a major component of our day-to-day political work.
The Spear has brought many Africans into revolutionary political life and influenced many others.
Uhuru Radio reaches African world
In 2006, the Party expanded its arsenal of weapons in the war of ideas, launching an online radio station called UhuruRadio.com.
This allowed for listeners around the world to hear analysis directly from the Party and participate through broadcasts in major events, protests and conferences across the world.
Uhuru Radio has given voice through its programs to struggles from Sierra Leone to Palestine to (Occupied Azania) South Africa to Belgium to Venezuela to St. Petersburg, Florida.
It has helped to break the isolation of our struggles in all these different places around the world where Africans find ourselves.
Uhuru Radio subsequently expanded to become UhuruNews.com, the Online Burning Spear Newspaper, providing news, analysis, music and an overall voice of the African working class.
In 2016, UhuruNews.com was rebranded into Theburningspear.com, to tie more closely to the print version.
Join in and add your voice and hands to these projects to build a future for ourselves in our own hands. Contact Burning Spear Media at 727.914.3615 or editor@theburningspear.com
Uhuru!
