Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Jesse Nevel, and Penny Hess (the Uhuru 3) celebrates with supporters on the steps of the courthouse after sentencing victory. p PHOTO: THE BURNING SPEARThe following article is a response to a CounterPunch article from December 27, 2024, titled “Freedom with a Caveat” by Nimri Aziz
I am one of the Uhuru 3. I maintain that the Uhuru 3 won a profound political victory for African people, all oppressed people, and all freedom-loving people here and around the world against the serious attacks by the U.S. government.
The Uhuru 3 includes Chairman Omali Yeshitela, who leads the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and the African Revolutionary Movement worldwide; Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM); and myself, Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC).
USM and APSC are organizations of white people under the leadership of the APSP, building reparations and support from the white community.
We were acquitted of being “Russian agents” but were falsely convicted of “conspiring to be Russian agents,” which we are appealing. We received no prison time and were required to pay no fines, only 300 hours each of community service.
During the sentencing hearing, the judge admitted that everything alleged in the indictment of the Uhuru 3 amounted to “legal and protected speech.” The judge was able to make this statement because we fought back.
The victory we had was a political victory. The U.S. government’s objective was to put us in prison for up to 15 years on the two charges. They wanted to continue the isolation of the African Liberation Movement, but we forced the justness and reality of the African Liberation Movement onto the world agenda.
This was a victory for “anti-colonial free speech,” raising to the forefront the centrality of the struggle against colonialism inside the U.S. and worldwide as the driving force for political power and transformation in the hands of oppressed people.
We fought for and won this victory over the past two and a half years—on the streets, in meetings, and through events—by building a larger and broader movement than ever before.
More than just a threat to free speech, the Uhuru 3 case was a major assault on the African Liberation Movement, a movement that has faced attacks for over a century. From Marcus Garvey in the 1920s to Malcolm X in the 1960s, to the assassinations of Black leaders and the imprisonment of hundreds of Black Panther Party members, the U.S. government has waged political, military, and counterintelligence attacks on African people whenever they have organized to fight for self-determination.
All of the “overt acts” alleged in the bogus indictment were simply our work to win support for the liberation of African people. This included tours, petitions, and events, including Chairman Omali Yeshitela’s trip to Moscow, which was one of many international trips to Europe and Africa he has made over the years with the objective of winning support for the struggle of African people and ending the information quarantine imposed inside the United States after the military defeat of the Black Revolution of the 1960s.
Fighting this case for two and a half years, the Party raised a political struggle that won support from forces across the political spectrum—right, left, Black, white, Asian, Indigenous, and more—not just in general terms but rooted in a defense of anti-colonial free speech and principled unity with the right of African and colonized people to advocate and organize for their liberation.
In support of the Uhuru 3, all of those forces came together in defense of anti-colonial free speech. As Chairman Omali Yeshitela summed up, “The only reason we didn’t get prison time is because we fought back against this government attack. We fought! The jury affirmed that we work for Black people, not Russia.”
The Bill of Rights and the First Amendment were not written by or for Black people. We were enslaved when they were written.
“The statement that free speech is a ‘truth’ that is ‘self-evident’ is something that you [white society] stated,” Yeshitela remarked. “The statement that free speech is a right must be upheld in practice.”
The attack on the Uhuru 3 was part of the government’s strategy to isolate the Black Liberation Movement. This is why it was significant that two members of the APSP’s white solidarity component were targeted alongside Chairman Omali and the APSP.
Under the Party’s leadership, the solidarity committee has fought for decades to educate the white community about the reality that the U.S. and capitalism were built on the kidnapping and enslavement of African people, the genocide of Indigenous people, and the colonial domination of oppressed peoples worldwide.
We have worked to build a movement of white people for reparations to African people, raising reparations and support for the numerous programs and projects of the Party, including the Black Power Blueprint in St. Louis, MO.
Under the leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the fight continues. We are working to free Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all political prisoners.
We stand with Palestine and the right of Indigenous people to their land. We are organizing to seek a repeal of the foreign agent and conspiracy laws that criminalize legitimate political activism.
As we prepare our appeal, hundreds of Uhuru Movement supporters continue to stand with the Uhuru 3 in meetings, webinars, and upcoming tours.
Join the winning side!
