The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) 2024 membership drive is in full swing. InPDUM’s “Will You Stand Up For Freedom?” membership drive campaign underscores the important tactic of winning the masses of African people back to political life. From Southern California to South Africa, we are gaining members, opening offices and organizing in defense of the democratic rights of the African community.
People can go to the InPDUM website and join for our special membership drive price of $10. They can also cut out the membership form [in the print edition of The Burning Spear] and return it to our St. Petersburg Office: Uhuru House ℅ InPDUM, 1245 18th Ave S, St. Petersburg, FL 33705.
Incarcerated brothers and sisters can join InPDUM for only $5 at our George Jackson-Dessie Woods level. Originally named our George Jackson membership, we renamed this level to include the name of political prisoner Dessie Woods. It recognizes the experience of African women behind enemy lines as well as the role that African men and women have played to free our brothers and sisters behind enemy lines.
Salute to African martyrs and African women
InPDUM began March with our Mafundi Lake Day observation in Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday March 2, 2024. This year’s event was held at Kelly Ingram Park and was well attended. In May 1983, our martyr Mafundi Lake organized the first African Liberation Day in Birmingham at Kelly Ingram Park. It was fitting that we returned there.
This event brought us in contact with comrades organizing in support of the Free Alabama Movement, an organization of incarcerated Africans organizing in opposition to the genocidal conditions in Alabama prisons.
On March 16, 2024, InPDUM San Diego held a screening of the documentary Eyes of the Rainbow on Assata Shakur. This event was organized in unity with International Women’s Day, Women’s History Month and the African National Women’s Organization (ANWO) convention. Resources were raised to send a comrade and longtime supporter Kadye to the ANWO convention in St. Louis. Kadye subsequently joined ANWO at the convention. All roads lead to Uhuru!
On March 21, 2024, InPDUM South Africa held a webinar that commemorated the March 21, 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa. The massacre was a colonial attack against Africans in opposition to the colonial pass laws. The Sharpeville Campaign was organized by Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe and the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania.
On Saturday March 30, 2024 InPDUM New York held their event honoring African women and martyrs at the Brownsville Heritage House.
Uhuru office opened in South Africa
InPDUM is located in three continents (North America, Africa and Europe) and no less than eight countries. In Africa, our membership is concentrated in Southern Africa and West Africa. We are developing in South Africa/Occupied Azania, Zambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
InPDUM’s branch in Msogwaba, Mpumalanga, South Africa has recently opened an office in the heart of the African township. Comrade Zakhele Mkhnonza, a longtime InPDUM leader in Occupied Azania acquired the building as a donation from an African patriot and sincere supporter of our struggle.
InPDUM has also acquired an office in Sierra Leone. The acquisition of these offices places InPDUM on the offensive. It answers a mandate by Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). It offers an organizing center where the masses can come to us with their concerns. It also offers a place for political education and cadre development.
The acquisition of the InPDUM office in Mpumalanga underscores the correctness of the tactics and strategies for winning African liberation handed to us by Chairman Omali Yeshitela.
Salute to longtime member Bakari Olatunji
Bakari Olatunji, Western Regional Coordinator of the APSP is a founding member of InPDUM. In fact, Bakari was a founding member of the People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (PDUM), formed in Oakland, California in 1989. PDUM was amongst a number of other local mass organizations created by the APSP to defend the African community.
Bakari proves the correctness of InPDUM’s recruitment strategy with almost 40 years of service to the African Revolution. A trained nurse, Bakari originally joined the Uhuru Movement through the mass work of the Bobby Hutton African People’s Freedom Health Clinic.
Bakari went on to become an important leader with PDUM, NPDUM and InPDUM in Oakland. It was Bakari who first notified Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the martyrdom of Huey P. Newton in 1989. Bakari served as the honor guard for the casket. In 2009, Bakari led the defense of Lovelle Mixon. Bakari has relocated to St. Louis where he serves as a leader in Uhuru Foods & Pies. InPDUM is eager to work with Bakari in his new location.
We are answering the clarion call for African liberation
From April 6 to April 12, InPDUM held a week of action. This week of action coincided with the 33rd anniversary of the formation of the National People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in 1991. April 6 is also the day that Bobby Hutton, the youngest founding member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, was murdered by agents of the U.S. counterinsurgency. April 12 marked the 60th anniversary of Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech in 1964.
We took to the streets, postering, tabling, canvassing and passing out flyers. We are seeing general memberships and even more George Jackson-Dessie Woods memberships rolling in. InPDUM is hopeful for what the rest of the spring brings.
May 25 is African Liberation Day. It originally signified the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) on May 25, 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 1972, the African Revolution within the United States observed African Liberation Day with a series of mobilizations throughout the country, the largest of which was in Washington, DC. The African People’s Socialist Party was formed on May 25, 1972 with the expressed purpose of reviving and completing the African Revolution of the 1960s.
This year, InPDUM follows the lead of the African People’s Socialist Party and will be organizing ALD events wherever we are. InPDUM San Diego is working alongside the Hands Off Uhuru Fightback Coalition, ANWO and Unión del Barrio to bring Chairman Omali Yeshitela to Southern California for a series of events that will culminate with African Liberation Day festivities at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park on Saturday May 25, 2024 and a regional ALD conference on May 26, 2024.
Go to ALDUhuru.org to find out how you can join InPDUM and the Uhuru Movement in building ALD. Go to InPDUM.org to grow our membership drive.
