On Feb.12, 2025, the African People’s Education and Defense Fund (APEDF) goes before the St. Louis Board of Adjustment for a long-awaited hearing to appeal the denial of a conditional use permit needed to begin construction of the future Uhuru Bakery & Cafe at 3719 W. Florissant Avenue.
The Uhuru Bakery & Cafe will bring healthy and delicious food to the Northside, an area known to be a food desert. The College Hill neighborhood in which the new eatery is located has NO grocery store or restaurant within the boundaries of the neighborhood.
African people comprise more than 91% of the population to be served by this new food business. Community health data shows 24.4% of the population are without vehicles and live more than one-half mile from a grocery store. Despite the urgent need for healthy food on the Northside, the City has only put up roadblocks to the opening of Uhuru Bakery & Cafe.
STL maneuvers to block African community development
APEDF purchased the property on January 26, 2024. Their architect’s plans for the Uhuru Bakery and Cafe included an addition to increase production space and a popular design where patrons could see their food being prepared through glass windows. They submitted the drawings and applied for a building permit on May 28, 2024. They were denied and have encountered a series of obstructions ever since.
In June, APEDF learned that a Zoning Hold had been placed on the application because a “restaurant” is not permitted for F-Neighborhood Commercial Zone. This is despite the fact that this building housed a restaurant for over 20 years. APEDF was informed that they could get a Zoning Hold ‘waiver’ under certain conditions including the support of the local Alderman and neighborhood association. After trying for months to win support from Alderman Aldridge and a neighborhood association with no public presence, APEDF proceeded to the Conditional Use Hearing on August 22.
At that hearing, 14 people spoke in favor of opening the full service Bakery & Cafe. They presented the board with 223 signatures of support from neighbors of the bakery and residents of St. Louis – more than 100 were from the immediate neighborhood known as College Hill, and an additional 114 letters of support signed by business owners from both the North and South Sides of St. Louis–to no avail.
So why has the City of St. Louis been blocking the APEDF from moving forward with renovations on the Cafe site for over 7 months?
St. Louis’ “Let it rot” plan for the Northside
The St. Louis government’s manipulations to block the bakery are rooted in a history of a colonial strategy to exploit and drive out the African community. Since the 1970s the City of St. Louis has engaged in a purposeful degradation of the North Side called “The Team Four plan” employing a policy of “benign neglect,” where they withheld infrastructure maintenance and left neighborhoods to deteriorate.
St. Louis American columnist Jamala Rogers writes, “The 1974 Team Four plan divided the city into three areas: conservation, redevelopment and depletion. The first two concepts speak for themselves. The North Side was designated a ‘depletion’ area, where destabilization efforts included lack of private and public investment and reduction of services. The goal was not just to take land but to dilute the political power of a burgeoning black population.”
As properties decay, the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) seizes and holds them for parasitic, predatory real estate investors to come in and gentrify the area. The “Delmar Divide” delineates the African Northside from the white Southside, exposing a drastic difference in quality of life between North and South St. Louis.
“Pentagon of the West” occupies Northside
Just down the street from the site of the future Uhuru Bakery & Cafe, the Federal Government continues to expand its National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) aka the “Pentagon of the West,” displacing hundreds of African families. The St. Louis NGA is a massive $1.7 billion 90-acre military compound used to collect data and direct U.S. wars around the globe, actively waging war campaigns against colonized and oppressed peoples around the world.
In contention with this predatory gentrification and genocidal occupation, APEDF is bringing genuine solutions to the insidious policies imposed upon the Northside community, through advancing African self-determination, combating gentrification, and opposing colonial violence.
City government corruption
St. Louis officials are complicit with the long-term insidious federal plans to control and destroy a cohesive thriving African community, padding their pockets along the way in backroom deals and corrupt activities. Several officials have been indicted and some imprisoned. The Building Division responsible for denying APEDF’s permit is currently under federal investigation.
Building inspector Adebanjo Popola has resigned after coming under investigation for corruption. Additionally, unnamed building inspectors are accused of asking for bribes from daycare businesses. In one instance, when the bribe was not paid the business was given code violations and the day care had to move to another site.
A whistle-blower on staff for the city’s nonprofit economic development agency, St. Louis Development Corp (SLDC), filed a lawsuit stating she was terminated after raising concerns about unauthorized meetings between SLDC officials and potential grant awardees regarding a North St. Louis commercial development project.
These illegal meetings could result in city employees facing jail time. The city could lose COVID-19 relief fund (ARPA) and potentially have to pay back millions of dollars to the federal government. Mayor Tishaura Jones, despite hundreds of letters and calls of concern regarding these illegal and corrupt actions and the long delay in permitting the Uhuru Bakery has refused to ever visit and communicate directly with APEDF.
An African neocolonialist, Jones stands firmly on the side of the white colonizers, opposing self-determination and community health for African residents. As one resident stated “The money is gone! They gone, keep giving y’all the runaround. Mayor got a piece too.. sad, nobody is honest.”
According to First Alert 4, at least three awards went to organizations connected to family members of SLDC board member and Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard. For example, one went to Ebony Washington, who was previously a candidate for alderman. Her organization, the People Project Corporation, reportedly aims to help the homeless and is based out of a home. It was incorporated just last August, long after COVID. Kenneth Hutchinson of Global 9 LLC received almost a million-dollar grant even though he filed for bankruptcy in the past.
APEDF obstructs gentrification, builds Black Power
In 2014 the colonial State took Michael Brown’s life in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and the community erupted in protests that received widespread international support. Recognizing the significance of this political moment, the Uhuru Movement directed focus to North St. Louis and has been working to bring solutions to the colonial oppression imposed upon the African community.
In a bold move to reverse decades of intentional destruction of the black community, the APEDF and the Uhuru Movement are building a model for neighborhood revitalization in the hands of black workers. It’s called the Black Power Blueprint. It consists of projects and businesses that put power into the hands of African people to feed, clothe, and house ourselves. It started with the acquisition and renovation of the Uhuru House black community center. It’s now a beautiful 3-story office and gathering space, hosting community and family events, including a training program for Doula pregnancy support givers.
Across the street the APEDF purchased and demolished two condemned buildings and put in place an outdoor events venue and community vegetable garden, providing fresh healthy food for neighbors. Next was the Black Power Vanguards basketball court. It’s a beautiful state-of-the-art court–the only one on the Northside where previously children had to use makeshift hoops in the street since even the public schools don’t provide courts.
The APEDF purchased and renovated a 4-plex housing unit, to serve its African Independence Workforce Program (AIWP). It has big plans for bringing healthy food along with culinary training and employment to the African community at two facilities. The biggest is located on Goodfellow near Natural Bridge, a large space being renovated for a community kitchen, cafe and national home for Uhuru Food and Pies. This location will serve as the training space for the AIWP.
A second food business will be at 3719 W. Florissant where the Black Power Blueprint has its community gardens, basketball court, future home of the Uhuru Wa Kulea Health Center for women and the Uhuru House community center. In order to jumpstart and build the Uhuru Foods brand and customer base, the APEDF purchased the former restaurant at 3719 W Florissant Ave.
APEDF has invested over $1 million in North St. Louis and will continue bringing needed resources to the African community. The success of these projects represents a threat to the big developers and their nefarious plans to drive the long-term African residents out of the city. Despite the obvious benefits that APEDF brings to the African community, this “baddest nonprofit on the planet” continues to face economic sanctions and attacks on multiple fronts.
White neighborhood association, local police, FBI collude
When approached by APEDF for a letter of support, Alderman Aldridge deferred to the College Hill Neighborhood Association. After weeks of trying to find the obscure association that has no public presence, APEDF found out where the group was meeting and made a presentation to win support for the Cafe. The association then held a closed meeting and voted against the Cafe’s permit.
Two months later, the APEDF went before the zoning board for the conditional use hearing. Teri Rose attended, claiming to represent the College Hill Neighborhood Association, and argued against the Cafe’s permit. A white resident of the majority black neighborhood, Rose opposed the Cafe’s construction permit with slanderous accusations that the APEDF “is divisive and a Russian corporation,” and that African people in that neighborhood shouldn’t have a restaurant because “they can’t afford to eat out.” Rose said that if beer or wine was served at such an establishment, it would prompt gun violence.
Teri Rose, Alderman Aldridge and the St. Louis building department are colluding with the FBI and other U.S. military and political forces to attack the legitimacy of the African liberation struggle and the ability of the African community to “do-for-self.”
When the FBI conducted violent military assaults in St. Louis and St. Petersburg, FL on seven Uhuru Movement offices and homes in 2022, the local police departments of both cities were part of the raiding parties. No arrests were made at the time but 9 months later, African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) Chairman Omali Yeshitela and two leaders of the Party’s white reparations wing – African People’s Solidarity Committee Chairwoman Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel–were indicted on bogus charges of serving as pawns of the Russian government.
In September 2024, all three were found not guilty on the foundational charges of being unregistered Russian agents, but guilty of conspiring to be unregistered Russian agents. Acknowledging that everything they were accused of doing was nothing more than First Amendment-protected political free speech, the judge gave no time in prison and no fine. They are appealing the wrongful conviction.
Chairman Omali declared victory in that the jury recognized that “We don’t work for Russia; we work for black people!”
Nevertheless, the offensive accusation of Russian control is being used against the legitimate work of the Uhuru Movement to build economic self-reliance, peace and justice in the African community.
They’re attacking APEDF in St. Louis and they’re doing it in St. Petersburg, where APEDF’s noncommercial radio station has also come under economic sanctions. Local government authorities there have attacked the popular station’s constitutionally protected rights to freedom of speech and assembly by withdrawing and denying nearly $100,000 in federal COVID relief funds for which it had qualified.
Community demands Hands Off APEDF!
The APEDF and its Black Power Blueprint are deeply rooted in the African community, enjoying strong support from residents and business owners across the Northside.
One of those business owners is Tameka Stigers, head of the 100-member St. Louis Business Association and operator of a popular hair salon. She said, “I have owned my salon and spa for 15 years and I’m here standing in support of this organization. We must continue to pressure the city to do the right thing and stop blocking economic development.
“This North city neighborhood deserves every opportunity to thrive just like those in South city. This neighborhood deserves good healthy choices of food. This neighborhood deserves small businesses and resources for uplifting families that foster pride and wellness.”
Karen Greer operates a home healthcare service in North St. Louis, where she has been a business owner for over 20 years. She testified, “The African People’s Education and Defense Fund has done a great job in this community. Everything they touch is gold. Everything they bring into this community beautifies this community and helps us in ways that the city refuses to do. I stand in support of the African People’s Education and Defense Fund and in support of opening this bakery.”
Prince Carter, living in the neighborhood since the 1970s said, “I want to find a way to use some of the skills and talents that my father has given me to help further what you’re doing because what you’re doing is really commendable. If we can’t have a bakery what can we have?”
Ben Petty (Mr. Dependable, who does demolition and cleanout of Black Power Blueprint projects) sums it up: “Since Uhuru has been here in St. Louis and especially in this neighborhood, it has gone up and up and up. … There has been great progress in this area.”
In addition to the very popular Gary Brooks Community Garden, APEDF also plans to open another urban garden that will source fresh produce for the Uhuru Bakery & Cafe.
Today’s Garveyites
The attacks on the Uhuru Movement are reminiscent of government attacks on Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) over a century ago. The UNIA was a major mass movement of Africans in 52 countries who declared, “Africa for Africans at home and abroad!”
By the early 1920s, the UNIA had established 700 branches in thirty-eight states, with economic initiatives including grocery stores, restaurants, print shops and the Black Line Shipping line. All of this was aimed at complete collective self-help and independence for African people.
During the Red Scare hysteria of that period, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover falsely accused Garvey of mail fraud. He was convicted in 1923 and deported back to Jamaica.
In a country such as the United States, built on the stolen land of Indigenous people and the stolen labor of kidnapped African people, it must be illegal to break away from colonial exploitation and build a strong economy where African people work for ourselves!
Adopted in 1979 and revised at our First Congress in 1981, the Platform of the APSP begins with two points that lay the basis for all of our economic work.
Point #1 reads, “We want peace, dignity, and the right to build a prosperous life through our own labor and in our own interests. We believe that the U.S. North American government and society were founded on the genocide of Native people, the theft of their land, and the forcible dispersal, enslavement, and colonization of millions of African people. We believe that the present condition of existence for African people within current U.S. borders is colonialism, a condition of existence where a whole people is oppressively dominated by a foreign and alien state power for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage. We believe further that this colonial domination is the primary basis of the problems of African people within the U.S. and that we shall know neither peace, prosperity, nor human dignity until this colonialist domination is overthrown and the power over our lives rests in our own hands.”
Point #2 reads, “We want the rights to economic development and creative and productive employment which promote the needs and well-being of our entire people. We believe that colonialism is a blood-sucking system which causes all economic development to benefit the colonialist ruling class state and society at the expense of our colonized people. We also believe that the massive, habitual unemployment and underemployment of our people benefit the U.S. colonialist ruling class and capitalist system and that a struggle by African people for jobs must be combined with a struggle for socialism and independent economic development.”
Indeed we are the Garveyites of today!
Get involved:
- Plan to attend the permit appeal on February 12, 2025 at 1:30 pm CT and show your support.
- Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/9616100275 PASSCODE: FDhmG9
- Or by phone at: 253-215-8782 with Meeting ID: 961 610 0275 and Passcode: 892471
- Join early to allow time to troubleshoot any connection issues.
- Send a letter of support for Uhuru Bakery & Cafe in your own words to stl@uhurufoods.org by February 9, so that we can submit it to the hearing.
- Attend community meetings at the Uhuru House in St Louis every Sunday at 3 pm CT or tune in live at http://www.youtube.com/@theburningspear
- Donate to the Uhuru Bakery & Cafe at Donate – Black Power Blueprint
