ST PETERSBURG, FL—Last month Burning Spear Publications released Omali Yeshitela’s explosive, visionary new book, An Uneasy Equilibrium: The African Revolution versus Parasitic Capitalism—a book that is shaping how African people and our allies everywhere see the world and our future in it.
Born here in St. Petersburg as Joseph Waller in 1941, Yeshitela is the Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, an organization with branches and supporters around the world.
The Party is headquartered in the Uhuru House on 18th Avenue and 13th Street South where a giant red-black-and-green African flag proudly flies next to the bright burnt-orange building.
For the first time since Marcus Garvey’s Freedom Hall was a worldwide African base in Harlem, NY in the 1920s, African people have an international center in the St. Petersburg Uhuru House.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela has committed the past 50 years of his life to the unwavering struggle for the complete unification and liberation of Africa and African people everywhere.
From his humble origins in this city 72 years ago Chairman Omali is today a well-traveled historical figure, the elder African statesman, known and beloved by Africans and freedom-loving people the world over for his courage, tenacity and fight.
History of struggle
Joseph Waller learned to read as a toddler and was taught a life-long lesson by his grandmother that he must fight for a better life for the entire African community and not just for himself.
In 1966, Waller was an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) when he led a group of young African people in boldly ripping down the offensive, racist 8-by-4-foot mural that had hung in city hall for 30 years.
Waller was charged with a felony for this act and sentenced to five years in prison of which he served two.
While in prison, Waller formed the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO) that had similarities to the Oakland, California-based Black Panther Party.
It was in this period that Waller first adopted the African name Omali Yeshitela which means “umbrella for a thousand people” in Amharic, a language spoken in Ethiopia.
By 1972, as the U.S. government’s COINTELPRO attack on the Black Power Movement intensified, it became clear to Yeshitela that our struggle needed a Party able to go beyond protest to a struggle for power and control over our lives.
During the 70s, the Chairman and the Party fought tirelessly—from the successful fight to free death row prisoners Pitts and Lee in Florida, to the campaign to free Dessie Woods.
Woods faced a certain death penalty, but instead was sentenced to 22 years in a Georgia prison for killing with his own gun, a white man who tried to rape her.
In 1975, the Party published a landmark pamphlet defining the conditions of African people in the U.S. as colonialism rather than racism.
In 1976, the African People’s Solidarity Committee, the organization of white formed working under the Party’s leadership.
In the 1980s, the Party moved its headquarters to Oakland, CA.
Campaigns such as the First International Tribunal on Reparations for African People held in Brooklyn, NY in 1982 and Measure O, the community control of housing initiative on the Oakland ballot in 1984, were coordinated from the Party’s West Coast base.
It was in Oakland that many of the Party’s economic institutions were born, including Spear Graphics, Uhuru Bakery-Café, Uhuru Furniture stores and Uhuru Foods, many of which are still in existence today.
In 1991, Chairman Omali founded the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in Chicago.
In 1993, the Party relocated its headquarters back to St. Petersburg where we purchased the Uhuru House building on 18th Avenue South.
In 1996, Chairman Omali again rose to local prominence when he emerged as the leader of the St. Petersburg African community following the October 24 police murder of 18-year-old TyRon Lewis and the subsequent rebellions.
During the 2000s, the Chairman has focused on Party-building and the launching of the African Socialist International.
In 2005, he gave the keynote presentation at the 8th Congress of the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania in South Africa where he was cheered on for his message of “One Africa! One Nation!”
The Chairman has written many books and articles and has spoken throughout Africa and in many parts of the world. Just last month he spoke at African Liberation Day in Paris, France.
Today Chairman Omali Yeshitela presides over the fastest growing African liberation organization in the world with branches in East, West and South Africa; in several countries in Europe; in the Caribbean, Canada and the U.S.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela, who is fit and healthy with the energy of someone half his age, remains more committed than ever to “African Independence in our Lifetime.”
Every Sunday at 4pm open rallies are held at the Uhuru House Akwaaba Hall. Join Chairman Omali and African people everywhere to reclaim our birthright, our happiness and our self-determination.
Uhuru!