5 Reasons Why You Don't Want to Miss “Resist War and Repression”

5 Reasons Why You Don't Want to Miss “Resist War and Repression”

On January 8-10 in St Petersburg, FL, the African People's Solidarity Committee will be holding its national plenary conference under the title, “Resist War and Repression: Solidarity with African Liberation.” The APSC is the organization of white people and other allies of African liberation organizing under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party. Below are five main reasons why you should register now to attend the “Resist War and Repression: Solidarity with African Liberation”!

#1 - CHAIRMAN OMALI YESHITELA, AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY LEADER.

Chairman Omali Yeshitela will be the keynote speaker at “Resist War and Repression.” Chairman Omali is the founder & leader of the Uhuru Movement and the Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party. He is a world renown anti-imperialist revolutionary who has provided political leadership to African revolutionary organizations around the world from St Petersburg to Sierra Leone. A veteran of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s. Author of dozens of books and pamphlets including “Omali Yeshitela Speaks” and “One People! One Party! One Destiny!”. The APSC is honored to have Chairman Omali as the keynote speaker at the national conference where he will be presenting, “Imperialism in Crisis, African liberation on the rise.” The rare opportunity to hear from this powerful African revolutionary leader is the #1 reason why you should register and make plans to attend this conference!

Check out this video of Chairman Omali Yeshitela's powerful presentation at Occupy Oakland!

2. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ON THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

Presentations and forum discussions with speakers including Penny Hess, Chair of the African People's Solidarity committee and author of “Overturning the Culture of Violence,” will address questions such as, What is the cause of the crisis of the US economic system? What gave rise to the Occupy Wall Street movement? Are white people a part of the so-called “99%”? What does it mean to be in “solidarity with African liberation”? What is the significance of racism in the struggle for social and economic justice? There will be also be a Q&A discussion with Chairwoman Hess and all of the conference speakers. Click here for more info on the exciting program!

3. A LOOK BACK AT 40 YEARS OF UHURU

Diop Olugbala, the President of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement and former mayoral candidate in Philadelphia, will be presenting on “The African People's Socialist Party: 40 Years of Revolutionary Leadership, Struggles and Victories.” The APSP, which leads the Uhuru Movement, was founded by Chairman Omali Yeshitela in 1972 and has since grown into an international revolutionary movement. President Diop's presentation will take a look back at the glorious history of the movement for African liberation and self- determination!

4. A LOOK AHEAD TO 2012: A YEAR OF REVOLUTION AND REPARATIONS!

This conference will lay out the exciting activist work of the African People's Solidarity Committee for the upcoming year of 2012 as the Uhuru Movement continues to build revolutionary organizations on multiple fronts throughout the world. Upcoming events, projects, actions, marches, fundraisers, campaigns, conferences, and plans will be discussed in a workshop called, “2012: Revolutionary transformation, not reform!” This is your opportunity to hear first hand from the organizers in the APSC about the work of the upcoming year and learn how you can get involved.

5. LET'S GET ORGANIZED! TRAININGS & WORKSHOPS FOR ACTIVISTS

This conference is not just a talkfest. The APSC is first and foremost an organization built for the purpose of material solidarity – solidarity through action, not just in words. The national conference will feature workshops and trainings for organizers on how to build and sustain organization through recruitment strategies and sustainable membership. APSC organizers will also lead a study of the organizing manual of the African People's Socialist Party, a historically significant document that has served as a powerful tool in the hands of the revolutionary leadership of the African working class. This training will focus on how the principles in the manual can be applied to the work of the solidarity movement.

If you believe that African people have a right to self-determination and freedom and that white people can take a stand in solidarity by working under the leadership of the African Revolution, then now is the time to register for the national conference of the African People's Solidarity Committee, January 8-10, in St Petersburg, FL. Resist War and Repression! Solidarity with African Liberation! Uhuru!

REGISTER TODAY!

Resist War and Repression!

Solidarity with African Liberation!

Uhuru!

Honoring our beloved Comrade Norma Bostock

On November 5, 2011, Norma Bostock, a loyal member and supporter of the Uhuru Movement passed away, following a courageous battle with illness.

We met Norma years ago when she was an active supporter of a local Tampa radio program that Uhuru Movement members hosted. Whenever there was a need for allies to take a stand in defense of the African community and its right to free speech and self-determination, Norma heeded the call.

She was an incredibly positive person who believed that a world in which no one lives at the expense of another is not only a possibility but an inevitability. She stood up for what she believed in and stood by those she believed in, even when it was not comfortable or easy to do.

Norma volunteered enthusiastically with the effort to build Uhuru News and Radio, the "online voice of the international African revolution" and brought her expertise to Uhuru Radio's first fundraising telethon in March of this year.

She was a card-carrying member of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and a generous donor to African community self-reliance institutions and to the African liberation struggle worldwide.

Norma was a strong, beautiful part of the Uhuru family and she will be missed. We will always remember Norma for her inner strength and generous smile and spirit. Her presence in our lives and her contribution to the creation of a world without oppression or exploitation will live on.

Uhuru (Freedom) to Norma!

Reparations in action! Help us meet our goal

Day in Solidarity campaign raises $9,000 in reparations - only $1,000 more needed to meet goal

This fall's Day in Solidarity with African People campaign has been outstanding!

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement has been busy talking with people - on the street, at their homes and at events organized all around the country. At the Day in Solidarity events, we heard from powerful leaders in the Uhuru Movement, the organization putting programs on the ground for African self-reliance. This movement is changing the world, laying the foundation for a society where everyone has what they need to live.



(Check out highlights from the Day in Solidarity events in St. Pete, FL; Chicago, IL; Oakland, CA; Philadelphia, PA.)

Nearly 200 people have publicly taken "The Pledge" to say "Yes, I support African people's struggle for justice, liberation and self-determination!"

See who has taken The Pledge and read some of their statements here.

Those people have backed up their statement with concrete support, contributing $9,000 toward African self-reliance programs of the Uhuru Movement. This is reparations in action!

One of several community gardens organized by the All African People's Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP)

See what Day in Solidarity fundraising supports.

We're just $1,000 shy of our $10,000 campaign goal. Can you help push us over the top?

Take the Pledge of Solidarity with African People and Contribute now!

Donate without taking the Pledge

Thank you for taking a stand in solidarity with African people in the worldwide struggle for justice, self-determination and freedom.

Uhuru!

Penny Hess speaks!

Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People's Solidarity Committee and author of Overturning the Culture of Violence, speaks at A Day in Solidarity with African People, Saturday, November 12, 2011 in Philadelphia.

If you believe that there will never be peace without justice, reparations, and liberation for African and other oppressed peoples inside the US and around the world, go to uhurusolidarity.org and take the pledge of solidarity with African people with a minimum contribution of 10 dollars towards the African liberation programs of the Uhuru Movement.

http://www.uhurusolidarity.org
http://www.uhurunews.com

Philadelphia Day in Solidarity with African People: world resistance through the eyes of African and oppressed peoples

Philly’s upcoming Day in Solidarity with African People event calls on white people to resist our financial and political rulers by joining in solidarity with the resistance of African, Indigenous and oppressed people's 500-year resistance against slavery, genocide and colonialism.

As millions of people around the world take to the streets against oppression, we stand in unconditional solidarity with justice, liberation and reparations for African people.

We cannot find justice and peace inside this country and around the world without overturning the historic wrong on which this country and economic system was built.

As mobilizations bring out millions around the world and here in this city, we see the movement for African liberation challenging the powers that be.

And we can be a part of it!

The Day in Solidarity with African People comes just days after the most historic election in Philadephia history--Diop Olugbala, an anti-imperialist candidate and leader of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) challenged neocolonial Michael Nutter for mayor of the city.

Diop for Mayor!

This past week was perhaps the most historic election in Philadelphia history, with an anti-imperialist candidate, International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement President Diop Olugbala, running on a solid revolutionary national democratic program to challenge the incumbent, neocolonial mayor Michael Nutter, for leadership of the city.

Over 6400 people (out of only 197,000 voters, a 19 percent turnout) went to the voting booth and cast their vote for Diop. The political landscape in the city of Philadelphia and throughout the U.S. will forever be changed, as the white ruling class will never again be able to run another neocolonial, politician for office without having to address the fundamental issues that the Uhuru Movement successfully raised through the campaign to elect Diop for mayor of Philadelphia.

The issues of police containment vs. economic development and African community control of housing, police and schools have been placed in the center of political debate in Philly due to Diop's campaign. The struggle for Diop for mayor is a struggle against neocolonial white power and imperialism.

The work done on the ground by Diop, campaign manager Chimurenga Waller, and all the amazing African forces working on the campaign was nothing short of incredible. With few resources but a strong ideological campaign, everyone struggled hard on the ground to get the word out, bring out African working class communities to vote on election day, and to win new arenas of political struggle through Diop’s campaign.

Everyone knows that this campaign represents a victory for the people -- not just in Philadelphia, but throughout the world! In a time when political struggle is the growing trend from Egypt to Oakland, St. Petersburg to Philly, the program of Diop’s campaign, won over in the streets and even brought to the cover of bourgeois newspapers like Philadelphia Weekly, the Philadelphia Inquirer and on major television networks like NBC and CBS, reached the masses of African people and many white allies in ways we had never imagined. When we struggle, we win!

Watch Wali “Diop” Rahman’s presentation from the Black is Back rally HERE:



Black is Back mobilization

A Day in Solidarity With African People comes one week after the dynamic Black is Back “Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance!” mobilization in Philadelphia.

This march, rally and townhall meeting brought forth concrete demands from African people struggling to be free from imperialism and neocolonialism. Hundreds of people turned out on the corner of Broad and Susquehenna in North Philly to take a solid stand against the wars of Obama, Nutter and all representatives of imperialism.

A strong contingent of Euro-Americans, from Uhuru Solidarity Movement, Occupy Philly and other anti-war and anti-imperialist organizations, came out to stand in solidarity with the mobilization, which featured Black is Back and African Socialist International Chairman Omali Yeshitela, InPDUM President and mayoral candidate Diop Olugbala, MOVE and Free Mumia leader Pam Africa, Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Glen Ford, and People’s Organization for Progress Chair Larry Hamm.

See Chairman Omali Yeshitela’s presentation from the rally HERE:

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Why A Day in Solidarity with African People is essential for us

A Day in Solidarity with African People gives us as white poeple the opportunity to learn the true history of this country built on slavery, plunder and wars of occupation. The Day in Solidarity will present a powerful keynote presentation by Chairman Omali Yeshitela and workshops educating us on the truth about America and U.S. violence.

This is the future! We must participate through mobilizing other white people in our community and winning resources as genuine material solidarity – reparations – to support the programs and work of the African People’s Socialist Party, InPDUM and the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP).

We must organize solidarity with campaigns like Diop for Mayor, Black is Back, and other genuine calls from the African community for justice, self-determination and liberation!

A Day in Solidarity With African People is where this all comes together.

Come to the event on Saturday, November 12 from 1pm – 6pm at the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street in Center City Philadelphia.

We must hear from leaders in the African Liberation Movement – Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Diop Olugbala, AAPDEP leader Ayesha Fleary, Diop for Mayor Education Commission Chair Rhone Fraser, MOVE survivor Ramona Africa, and Penny Hess – the Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee.

When we are organized in solidarity with African people leading their own struggle to be free, we transform ourselves!

And immediately following the Day in Solidarity event, Chairman Omali Yeshitela will make a keynote presentation at the “Free Land” festival at Occupy Philly at City Hall.

Don’t miss this incredible day of events, with a necessary teach-in for all of us who want to transform our parasitic relationship to African and other oppressed people and move forward towards building a new world!

Come to the Day in Solidarity With African People!

Reparations in Action!

UHURU!

Take the Pledge today! Donate $10 or more to support the programs of the Uhuru Movement:

http://uhurusolidarity.org

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Diop for Mayor: The People's Campaign

"Run Hard! It's Our City and We Want it NOW!"
The Campaign to Elect Wali "Diop" Rahman Mayor of Philadelphia



The past 120 days in Philadelphia, PA have been a whirlwind of hard work, struggle and intense organizing similar to the very recent Uhuru Freedom Summer Project in St. Petersburg FL. The Campaign to Elect Wali "Diop" Rahman Mayor of Philadelphia is a grassroots campaign that skyrocketed off the ground almost immediately from the first moment the idea was raised that Diop Olugbala, International President of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, run for mayor to directly challenge Michael Nutter, the neo-colonial African incumbent mayor of Philadelphia -- the same leader who ordered Diop's arrest for protesting the city's War Budget in 2009 -- for leadership of this city.

Diop has organized and won support in nearly every sector of this city. The campaign has taken Diop from the Broad Street subway trains selling Burning Spears -- a critical aspect of the ongoing organizing work InPDUM does regularly in Philly -- to the School Reform Commission, to City Council Chambers during the hearing on the newly passed extended youth curfew bill, to candidates forums facing Republican "also-ran" candidate Karen Brown (Nutter has yet to show up for any candidates forums), to the cover of Philadelphia Weekly and TV appearances on NBC 10 @Issue and CBS 3 "Newsmakers" (see below).



Standing on a solid platform consistent with the principles of InPDUM and the African People's Socialist Party, Diop is running for economic development, community control of police, education, housing and food access for the oppressed and impoverished African and Latino communities as a path to shared prosperity -- where one community doesn't live at the expense of any others in this city.

Occupy Philadelphia -- nearly a month old in its occupation of City Hall against the Wall Street "1%" -- has endorsed Diop as THE candidate to vote for on November 8th, along with the organizations International Action Center, PEACE Coalition, People of Color Committee, and of course, Uhuru Solidarity Movement. Diop has spoken several to Occupy Philly (see here, and here), expressing unity with the anti-imperialist actions and posing a challenge to the activists to take a deeper stand in solidarity with liberation and justice for African and other oppressed peoples. The General Assembly broke protocol by applauding Diop with a rousing response to his appeal to endorse and build for the November 5th Black is Back Coalition "Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance" mobilization.

The city now knows that Wali "Diop" Rahman will be on the ballot on Tuesday, November 8th. His ballot number is #417 -- make sure you find #417 and vote for Diop!

We standing in unconditional solidarity with Diop's campaign and we know that victory will be won!

Diop for Mayor!

Run Hard!

Uhuru!

Uhuru Solidarity at Occupy St Pete

Members of Uhuru Solidarity Movement have participated for the past 3 weeks in the Occupy St Pete General Assembly gatherings.


As part of the Occupy St Pete General Assembly, we have struggled to raise up the demand for reparations from Wall St and the US government to African and Indigenous peoples and to stand in solidarity with the African community inside the US and around the world.




We have met several friendly and supportive people at our outreach table where we have called on other North Americans to take a principled stand in solidarity with the African community's struggle for economic development and self-determination.

The General Assembly meeting on October 22 culminated with a march on Downtown St Pete. We led several of the chants during this march, including "Occupy Wall St, Not the Middle East" and "Down with Wall St! Reparations Now!"

Jesse Nevel, local chair of St Pete branch of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, speaks at Occupy St Pete General Assembly October 22, 2011

If you stand against Wall St and US imperialism, join Uhuru Solidarity Movement and take the pledge of solidarity with African people with a minimum 10 dollar contribution towards the work of the Uhuru Movement for African liberation and self-determination.

VIDEO: Diop Olugbala on NBC Philadelphia!

Wali "Diop" Rahman, aka Diop Olugbala, President of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement and Philadelphia's only Independent mayoral candidate, was featured in an in-depth interview on NBC Philadelphia. The video is split up into 8 segments. The remaining segments are posted below. Vote for Diop and contribute to the Diop for Mayor campaign at www.diop2011.org. And if you're in or around Philadelphia, don't miss your chance to hear Diop Olugbala speak at the upcoming "Day in Solidarity with African People" event, 1-6PM on November 12 at First Unitarian Church 2125 Chestnut St.

Segment 2
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"Occupy Wall Street" is a crisis for the ruling class. Deepen the crisis!

Shared from Uhuru News.

The following is a statement from the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement on the Occupy Wall Street actions.

The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement welcomes the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors into the historical struggle against the ruling class that we, as Africans, have been involved in for centuries.

This growing movement of mostly white protestors who are challenging the bankers, capitalists and the political rulers represents a reinforcement for the ongoing centuries-long struggles of African, Mexican and Indigenous people.

The undeniable fact is that colonized people have been victimized by the bankers, politicians and even ordinary white citizens ever since Europe enslaved Africans and committed genocide against Indigenous people.

Identifying the enemy: the ruling class and their puppet politicians

The thieving bankers on Wall Street and the corporations are the ones who control the politicians, hire the armies to occupy communities and steal the resources of the oppressed peoples of the world.

They are the ones who impose repressive police-military occupation of the barrios, “reservations” and African communities inside this country.

These are the same criminal elite who ripped off tens of thousands of African people of our homes in this country through the subprime mortgage scheme. This resulted in the loss of more than $200 billion for the African community through foreclosures, which is the largest transfer of wealth from the African community since the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

African people were the first commodity of capitalism

Wall Street and the stock market were built on slavery and genocide. African people were the first “stock” sold and traded on Wall Street.

The bones of African people lay buried in the slave cemetery beneath the buildings on Wall Street. These same African slaves were forced to build Wall Street, for the purpose to subdue an Indigenous insurgency that was trying to take its stolen land back.

The OWS movement must support reparations from the banks and the U.S. government for centuries of slavery and gross exploitation of African people.

African Liberation Movement has historic record of challenging Wall Street and capitalism

We welcome others who are coming to the same conclusions that Africans have held for so long.

We hope that the OWS movement will not allow itself to be drawn into false solutions that demand more wars against the rest of the world’s peoples, millions of whom live on less than two dollars a day because of the exploitation by the bankers and their political and military representatives.

The OWS movement must unite with oppressed peoples around the world and inside this country whose communities have been occupied by Wall Street and their lackeys for the past 500 years.

African self-determination is the way forward

As African people under military occupation inside this country, we are struggling for control of our own communities, for economic development that uplifts the entire community out of poverty that was imposed on us since our enslavement, and to end the police occupation and mass imprisonment of our people.

Wall Street and the system it represents are the primary obstacles that separate African people from our resources and self-determination. It is our African struggle for freedom that will ultimately signal the triumph of humanity over the parasites on Wall Street. African Revolution is the solution!

Occupy Wall Street, not Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, the barrios, the black community, the reservations!

Resist the police occupation of the African community! Stand in solidarity with the Indigenous people, as they struggle for their land and self-determination!

We say down with Wall Street and U.S. imperialism! Africans have a right to resist! Stop the wars and build the resistance!

Join the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement!

http://inpdum.org/

Join the Black is Back Mobilization: “Stop the Wars! Build the Resistance!” on November 5 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!

http://www.blackisbackcoalition.org/

Uhuru!

Uhuru Solidarity Movement speaks at Occupy Philly

Uhuru Solidarity Movement organizer Harris Daniels addresses the crowd at the Philly Against War rally on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, PA on Saturday, October 15. The rally also included over 500 participants from Occupy Philadelphia, who had marched from City Hall.

If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!

Join the Black is Back mobilization November 5, 2011 in Philadelphia:
http://www.blackisbackcoalition.org

Be sure to attend the upcoming "Day in Solidarity with African People" event in Philadelphia, PA where you will have the opportunity to hear presentations from Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Wali "Diop" Rahman and other leaders in the African Liberation Movement! The event will be held on Saturday, November 12 · 1:00pm - 6:00pm. First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA. Click here for more info!

Uhuru!

Report back from Oakland's Day in Solidarity with African People

A Day in Solidarity with African People, held on October 13th, 2011 in Oakland held an electrifying program at the Humanist Hall that brought out long time supporters, welcomed in new members and raised support for the programs of the Uhuru Movement.

Wendy Snyder, the West Coast organizer with the African People’s Solidarity Committee and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement welcomed the attendees by reading the Pledge of Solidarity and describing the campaign to win members and allies from the white community with the African Liberation Movement.


The young performers from the Marcus Garvey Upliftment Project were brought forward by Director Nyisha Moncrease and kicked off the event with African dance. The MGUP is a free arts and education center in East Oakland, CA with the mission to provide a safe environment for tomorrow’s leaders by teaching skills needed for African community self-determination.

Following the performance, Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee gave a brilliant powerpoint presentation that detailed the understandings and teachings of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and illustrated through her slides how the wealth of the white population comes directly from the attack on Africa, the enslavement of African people, the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the plunder of oppressed peoples worldwide.



Chairwoman Hess also challenged the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, “We are NOT the 99 percent,” she stated, clarifying that in actuality white people live of the resources of the rest of the people on the planet.

Hess explained that a true movement to overturn the system of Wall Street is the one led by African and oppressed peoples and that our role is to join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement.



After the presentation by Penny Hess, Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson saluted the Uhuru Movement and struggled with the notion of racism versus colonialism, describing the terror that he and his family have faced – from the brutal killing of his nephew, Oscar Grant on the Fruitvale BART platform on January 1, 2009. He described the growing resistance that he sees, particularly among young African people.

"Right now it’s pregnant, ready to give birth to something powerful,” he said.


The keynote speaker following “Uncle Bobby, “ was Omali Yeshitela, the Chairman of the African Socialist International and founder of the Uhuru movement. “Welcome to the struggle,” he said, addressing the Occupy Wall Street Movement. We have been against Wall Street from the beginning."

He explained that Wall Street was actually built by African slaves and African people were the first commodity to be bought and sold. Furthermore, he stated that the wall itself was actually built to protect white people from the so-called Indians. Yeshitela called on the people of the Occupy Wall Street movement to be against imperialism and therefore with the African and indigenous peoples on the planet who are victims of imperialist aggression.

Also speaking at the event was Vylma Ortiz, from the Stop the Gang Injunctions coalition who presented the recent victories of that coalition to push back the legalized racial profiling, the youth curfews and other police measures in the city of Oakland.


Cat Brooks of the Onyx Organizing Committee gave a statement from her organization, describing their involvement with the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant and their intervention in the Occupy Oakland. She explained the roots of the Onyx Organizing Committee in the challenge to the opportunism of white people who attempted to lead that struggle. She also relayed the backlash she was facing at Occupy Oakland by so-called white progressives who opposed African self-determination.

Finally, Maureen Wagener, the director of Uhuru Foods presented on the economic development programs of the Uhuru Movement and the upcoming Uhuru Pies fundraiser, which has a goal to sell 3500 pies in November and December.


People at the event contributed to the Uhuru Movement programs and joined the organization. The event raised $1400 and won six new members to join and two others to renew their membership. Participants also signed up to be involved in Uhuru Pies, a fundraiser for the African People’s Education and Defense Fund, which include community economic development designed to uplift the entire African community.

The Day in Solidarity with African People in Oakland showed the massive potential of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement to build its membership and to reach allies of the African Liberation Movement who are looking for real transformation and change.

If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!

Omali Yeshitela Speaks at Occupy Wall Street in Oakland

Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African Socialist International, founder of the Uhuru Movement and leader of the Black is Back Coalition speaks at Occupy Wall Street in Oakland, California to the People of Color Caucus about struggles of African and Indigenous peoples against U.S. imperialism and Wall Street interests since its inception.

Join the Black is Back mobilization November 5, 2011 in Philadelphia:
http://www.blackisbackcoalition.org

UhuruNews.com
http://www.uhurunews.com

Wali "Diop" Rahman speaks at Philly Against War

Wali "Diop" Rahman, aka Diop Olugbala, International President of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement and Philadelphia's only Independent Mayoral Candidate, addresses the October 15th, 2011 "Philly Against War" rally, which included over 500 people from Occupy Philadelphia, on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, PA.

Building for the November 5th, 2011 Black is Back Coalition mobilization "Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance!"
http://uhurunews.com
http://diop2011.com
http://inpdum.org
http://blackisbackcoalition.org

Overturning the legacy of Columbus

It would be unthinkable for any country in Europe or America to set aside a day each year in honor Hitler, yet the greatest perpetrator of genocide in history is celebrated every October 12, the day that honors Christopher Columbus and his “discovery” of a “new world” in 1492.

We are told that Columbus represented the visionary spirit of exploration that characterized the Europeans. But as we know history is written by the conquerors.

How can someone “discover” two continents inhabited by millions of human beings with advanced, long standing and diverse civilizations that had cultivated the land, built enormous monuments and buildings, understood astronomy, wrote books and lived in towns, cities and countryside alike without pollution?

The reality is that Columbus was backed by the Spanish crown for the purpose of colonization and plunder of resources in what was believed to be Asia to enrich Spain and its inhabitants.

The dispatching of Columbus on his colonial mission came about at the same time that “white” Spain was being consolidated through wars and the terror of the Inquisition, driving out the Arabs, Africans and Jews who had lived there peacefully for 700 years, and seizing their considerable resources.

Spain like most of Europe was poor in the middle ages, and this is why Queen Isabella had to hock her jewels to pay for Columbus’s trip.

It was Columbus’s occupying force along with the trade in enslaved African people (which Columbus was also involved in) that opened the door for the vast wealth and power that would flow into Europe for the next 500 years at the expense of the Native and the African people.

As Chairman Omali Yeshitela, leader of the Uhuru Movement states, slavery and genocide are the foundation on which America rests. Would there be an America without the genocide of the Indigenous people and the theft of their land? Would there be an America without the enslavement of African people? “No, no, no and a thousand times no,” states Yeshitela.

As writer and Indigenous activist Ward Churchill writes, subsequent to Columbus’ first “voyage of discovery” in 1492, he returned the next year “with an invasion force of 17 ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself as the ‘viceroy and governor of the [Caribbean islands] and the mainland of America,’ a position he held until 1500.

“Setting up shop on the large island he called Espa–ola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery (encomiendo) and systematic extermination against the native Taino population. Columbus's programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Perhaps 100,000 were left by the time of the governor's departure. His policies, however, remained, with the result that by 1514 the Spanish census of the island showed barely 22,000 Indians remaining alive.

In 1542, only two hundred were recorded. Thereafter, they were considered extinct, as were Indians throughout the Caribbean Basin, an aggregate population which totaled more than fifteen million at the point of first contact with the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, as Columbus was known…”

This process of genocide, begun by Columbus in Haiti was only just beginning as it expanded throughout North and South America.

As Churchill continues, “All told, it is probable that more than one hundred million native people were ‘eliminated’ in the course of Europe's ongoing ‘civilization’ of the Western Hemisphere.”

In his book Conquest of Paradise, Kirkpatrick Sale wrote of Columbus’ domination of the island of Espa-ola:

The tribute system, instituted by the Governor [Columbus] sometime in 1495, was a simple and brutal way of fulfilling the Spanish lust for gold while acknowledging the Spanish distaste for labor. Every Taino over the age of fourteen had to supply the rulers with a hawk's bell of gold every three months (or in gold-deficient areas, twenty-five pounds of spun cotton); those who did were given a token to wear around their necks as proof that they had made their payment; those who did not were, as [Columbus's brother, Fernando] says discreetly "punished"-by having their hands cut off, or as [the priest, Bartolome’ de] las Casas says less discreetly, and left to bleed to death.

It is entirely likely that upwards of 10,000 Indians were killed in this fashion alone, on Espa–ola alone, as a matter of policy, during Columbus's tenure as governor.”

Las Casas' writings among other contemporaneous sources, are also “replete with accounts of Spanish colonists (hidalgos) hanging Tainos en masse, roasting them on spits or burning them at the stake (often a dozen or more at a time), hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog feed and so forth, all of it to instill in the natives a "proper attitude of respect" toward their Spanish ‘superiors.’”

And this is only a single example of the massive terror waged by the thousands of successors of Columbus who repeated this genocidal terror in a myriad of forms, from Alaska through the Americas to the tip of Chile.

Whether it was with small-pox infested blankets and brutal massacres such as Sand Creek and Wounded Knee in the U.S. or working indigenous people to death in the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia, Columbus set the example for European conquistadors ready to stop at nothing for land, gold and riches.

Today Indigenous people in North America make up the most impoverished population inside the U.S., living on reservations on their own stolen land with a life expectancy of about 47 years.

The affluence, prosperity and opportunities of white people be able to come from poverty in Europe and climb up the ladder of success are directly attributable the violent theft of this land from the original inhabitants and the stolen labor of enslaved Africans for 200 years.

This explains why white people now have 20 times the wealth that the African community has and why Indigenous reservations are struggle under deadening poverty and powerlessness.

We unite with the call by many Indigenous groups and their supporters that Columbus Day must be abolished and replaced with Indigenous People’s Day.

But more than that we unite that the Indigenous people have a right to the return of their own land and to justice and reparations for hundreds of years of genocide and oppression.

If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!

Chicago Day in Solidarity with African People breaks new ground

CHICAGO "DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFRICAN PEOPLE" EVENT
WINS ALLIES, RESOURCES, AND SUPPORT FOR UHURU MOVEMENT'S AFRICAN SELF-RELIANCE PROGRAMS

JOIN THIS GROWING MOVEMENT
FOR SOLIDARITY WITH AFRICAN LIBERATION!

TAKE THE PLEDGE OF SOLIDARITY WITH AFRICAN PEOPLE TODAY WITH A MINIMUM $10 CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS THE PROGRAMS OF THE UHURU MOVEMENT!

The Day in Solidarity with African People held in Chicago broke new ground in a city that has not seen the Uhuru Solidarity Movement for many years.

The Days in Solidarity with African People is the annual campaign of the African People’s Solidarity Committee and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, organizations of Euro-American people working in white communities under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, which leads the Uhuru Movement.

The Chicago event, held at the Bucktown-Wicker Park Library community room, attracted North Americans and others from all age groups, many who attended because of the postering and leafleting that had been done by the Chicago branch of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement for weeks.

There were also several Africans present, including Wil Lockett, a Chicago organizer for the African People’s Socialist Party.

To start things off, local Uhuru Solidarity Movement organizer, Kristin Gordon, welcomed all attendees and showed the national campaign video for A Day in Solidarity with African People.

Nate Gilliam, Director of Economic Development and Finance for the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP), came in from Milwaukee and gave a powerful presentation about the work that AAPDEP is doing in the U.S. and Africa.

Gilliam provided a critique of the charity model propagated by all not-for-profit organizations that not only demoralizes African people but its intention has never been to actually resolve and change the conditions for African people.

Gilliam pointed out the huge profits that NGO’s make in Africa from the suffering and starvation of African people, like the huge food donations that only swamp the market so that Africans cannot make any profit from selling their own produce. Gilliam also raised the critical issue that these NGO’s never ask the question, “Why is charity needed in the first place?” Africa is so rich in fertile land and resources, why would it need donations to feed itself?

Making it clear that the poverty experienced by African people everywhere is imposed, Gilliam stated that the root cause of the poverty was the initial attack on Africa and the continued exploitation by the U.S. and Europe. Gilliam emphasized that it is a war against African people.

Gilliam spoke about the many projects that AAPDEP is working on, including the rainwater harvesting project in Sierra Leone, where he and other African People’s Socialist Party members are going next month, and the Marcus Garvey Saturday School in Washington D.C. He received a rousing applause from the audience.

Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee Penny Hess gave a presentation based on the understandings and teachings of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and explained that the white population lives on the pedestal of the enslavement of African people, the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the plunder of oppressed peoples worldwide.

Chairwoman Hess exposed the “Occupy” movement as a loosely-defined group of mostly white leftists that are calling for reform of a capitalist system that is inherently parasitic and simply want a larger chunk of the stolen resources from the oppressed peoples of the world.

Hess laid out that “We are NOT the 99 percent,” that in fact white people are the 10 percent that live off the resources that are expropriated from oppressed countries through war, genocide and exploitation. This presentation won a lot of North Americans to the theory of African Internationalism as several people joined the Uhuru Solidarity Movement that day!

Hess participated in the call for resources with Kristin Gordon and they were able to raise $475 in pledges and donations. One generous donation of $100 was contributed by a college student in Chicago who took the Pledge of Solidarity with African People several weeks ago and sponsored Matt Daniels, a member of Uhuru Solidarity Movement. He was very interested in holding a similar event at his college and wants to be actively involved in upcoming Uhuru Solidarity Movement - Chicago actions.

Uhuru Solidarity Movement is on their way to building a powerful branch in Chicago!

If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!

Reparations, not reform! An appeal to the Occupy Wall Street movement

REPARATIONS FROM WALL STREET AND WHITE AMERICA FOR 500 YEARS OF COLONIALISM, SLAVERY, GENOCIDE AND IMPERIALISM!
An appeal to the Occupy Wall Street movement

Uhuru! We begin our letter with this greeting, “Uhuru,” because it is a Swahili word that means freedom and it is the slogan of the Uhuru Movement, an international African working class movement led by the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) that is uniting African people in the U.S. and around the world in the revolutionary struggle for self-determination.

We are the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, an organization of white people and other allies of black liberation who work under the leadership of the APSP to organize in our own communities for material solidarity with the African Liberation Movement.

We stand against the thieving bankers on Wall Street

Several of our members traveled to New York City during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations where they did outreach for the national campaign to build A Day in Solidarity with African People and signed people up to participate in the upcoming “Stop the Wars, Build the Resistance” march led by the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations.

We unite with the enthusiasm of the participants in protesting the profound injustice of this government and system that we see all around us. We believe it is a sign of the ever increasing and deepening crisis of imperialism. For the first time since Obama was elected, we are seeing thousands of North American/white people taking to the streets to express discontent with the current state of the U.S. economic system.

But we want to seriously and sincerely call on the Wall Street protesters and all progressive minded North American people everywhere to look deeper at the problem and recognize that capitalism is not “broken”—it was born this way. It cannot be reformed. And as millions of oppressed peoples around the world are rising up to prove: the entire capitalist system must be overturned.

The world system of capitalism—for which the U.S. is the leading state power, and Wall Street its economic epicenter - was built on the enslavement of African people and the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the theft of their land.

Capitalism is a parasite, sucking the blood of the majority of humanity, waging unending wars of plunder and occupation, terror and genocide around the world in order to control natural resources necessary for the high standard of living in the Western world, justified by an ideology of racism and white nationalism.

This system has wreaked havoc on the majority of the world—the true 99 percent—for 500 years, destroying whole continents of people, decimating civilizations, terrorizing nations, imposing poverty and repression and even destroying the ecosystem of the planet itself to provide the white population with a pedestal for our assumed lifestyle that is unattainable except for the most wealthy in other parts of the world.

Who is the real 99 percent?

While it is true that one percent of the U.S. population controls the majority of the wealth, to equate ourselves with those suffering profound poverty and repression around the world and inside this country simply flies in the face of reality. You and I know this is true.

Just because we are not all bankers, Rockefellers or Bill Gates does not mean we are “all in the same boat.”

The fact of the matter is that even as white people are beginning to experience the effects of the economic crisis, we are still living the highest standard of living in the world at the expense of the real “99 percent” inside this country – African, Mexican and Indigenous people who live behind an invisible wall of colonial oppression right here in America.

Even as the economic crisis has begun to affect the entire U.S. population, white people are still earning an average income that is $20,000 higher than the average income of African families. The wealth gap between white and black families in this country has widened to a point where white people have 20 times the wealth of black people.

Yes, we are starting to feel the pinch. But why haven't we been coming out in droves to demonstrate as black teenagers have been shot down by police all over the U.S.?

Where is the outcry about the mass roundups of African people in this country that now have more black men in prison than in college? There is a war going on inside these borders, but we walk right over the African community to get to Wall Street.

Where are the demonstrations calling for genuine peace, saluting the right of the African, Afghani, Iraqi, Palestinian and Indigenous peoples to have their land, resources and self-determination back in their own hands?

This parasitic monster can’t be reformed

There is no such thing as “going back to the good old days.”

Parasitic capitalism is not going to go away simply because we reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act or repeal a Supreme Court decision about corporate personhood. You cannot overcome a disease by treating its surface symptoms. We must go to the heart of the problem—colonialism.

We have to see our future as inextricably tied to the rest of humanity who are struggling fiercely to get this monster off their backs so they can live and prosper on their own land and resources. In fact, this is the cause of the crisis in the U.S. and Europe today: oppressed peoples are fighting back, making it more difficult for the U.S. to steal the increasingly rare resources of the planet.

Any attempt to reform capitalism will prove to be futile. This system is going down. And the majority of the oppressed peoples of the world are the ones who are going to bring it down as they struggle to build a new world based on justice and equity, not one nation prospering at the expense of another.

Imperialism is the enemy

We unite with struggles of the colonized, in solidarity, under their leadership. Their enemy—the U.S. and European governments, military and war machines, the Wall Street bankers and corporate bloodsuckers—is our enemy as well.

We must take responsibility for the legacy of the oppressor and the slave-master that we have inherited and build the movement for reparations from the white community to the African and oppressed peoples of the world.

We do not ask for more of the loot stolen by bankers and the U.S. government. We demand that the stolen resources—the basis of all imperialist war—be returned to the self-governing peoples of the world as the only possible basis for peace on this planet.

That's the only thing that's going to put this capitalist system into its grave. And we have a role to play in bringing this new world into existence by organizing in solidarity with African liberation.

Without resolving this fundamental contradiction between the oppressor nation and oppressed nations, it is impossible to resolve any of the contradictions that we face within our own communities—homophobia, sexism, the oppression of white workers, etc. All of these problems occur within the context of the colonial enslavement and mass exploitation of Africans and other colonized peoples.

What you can do

If you are truly committed to changing the world, then we call on you to do more than simply occupy Wall Street; we call on you join the movement for reparations and organize in solidarity with African liberation! Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement. Take a genuine stand on the side of the African community, going to heart of the problem to overturn this system.

The future is in the hands of the colonized. Our future, as well, is to be found in solidarity with the revolutionary struggles of African, Mexican, Indigenous, Arab, Afghan and other oppressed and colonized peoples of the world.

We unite with the demand for reparations to African and oppressed peoples everywhere.

If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism, past and present, against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!

We call on all white people struggling for justice to hear the voice of African and oppressed people and to participate in the Black is Back Coalition demonstration to "Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance" in Philadelphia on November 5, 2011.

Victory to the African and Indigenous peoples of the world!
Death to imperialism! Down with Wall Street and white power!
Solidarity with African liberation!
REPARATIONS NOW!
UHURU!

PHOTOS: Uhuru Solidarity organizers at Wall St. demo

Dan Raymond, Uhuru Solidarity Movement, NYC

Members, supporters, and friends of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement attended the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations on Saturday, October 1, 2011 to organize the North American/white participants there to Take the Pledge of Solidarity with African People and sign up to participate in the Black is Back Mobilization,"Stop the Wars & Build the Resistance," that is being held in Philadelphia on November 5, 2011.

USM Outreach at Occupy Wall Street

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement recognizes that Wall Street - and the entire white American power structure - was built on the enslavement of African people and genocide against the Indigenous people. The birth of capitalism created a pedestal of wealth and opportunity for the entire white population, and today, we (white people) continue to live at the highest standard of living in the world even as we are beginning to experience the effects of the economic crisis.

USM represents the stance of solidarity with African liberation

But "reform" is not good enough. Imperialism cannot fix itself. And there will be no solution for us at the expense of African people. Our future is to be found in solidarity with the revolutionary struggles of African, Mexican, Indigenous, Arab, Afghan and other oppressed and colonized peoples of the world.

Marcel Cartier at Occupy Wall St. takes the Pledge of Solidarity with African People

We unite with the demand for reparations to African and oppressed peoples everywhere. If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!