From the Freedom Rides to the Freedom Summer, the Movement Lives On!

From the Freedom Rides to the Freedom Summer, the Movement Lives On!

Come to “Resistance is the Future” on June 4-5 in Philadelphia, PA to find out how you can be involved in the historic Freedom Summer Project. “Resistance is the Future” is the national convention of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM), an organization of Euro-Americans and other allies of the African Liberation Movement who work under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party to build material solidarity and reparations to Africa and the African community in the US and around the world. Register today to get on board with the ongoing struggle for freedom and justice!

History is not a thing of the past – the struggle continues

Freedom Riders, 1961

Nearly a half-century after the courageous Freedom Riders rode into the segregated Jim Crow south to take a stand against the oppression of the black community, a new generation of activists, students, and socially conscious people are coming from all around the world to make history in St. Petersburg, FL in the Freedom Summer Project of 2011.

The concept of the “Freedom Summer” originates from the civil rights era of the 1960s. In the year of 1964 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized the legendary Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, a massive voter registration drive that forever changed the course of history and ushered in a powerful decade of struggle by oppressed African people that transformed this country and electrified the world. Thousands of white students and others made history by joining in solidarity with the movement for black freedom and converging on Mississippi and other parts the South to stand up to white terror and support the movement of African people rising up out of centuries of enslavement, Jim Crow, lynchings and poverty.

The Uhuru Movement is calling on white students and friends from all walks of life to once again stand with the struggle for black freedom in the St Petersburg Freedom Summer Project, July 9 – August 9.

Under the leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, who was a SNCC organizer in the 60s and leads the Uhuru Movement today, the St. Pete Freedom Summer Project will push forward the ongoing struggle to defend the democratic rights of the African community and put the agenda of the black community back on the table.

Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964

The Sixties Are Over, but the Conditions Have Not Changed – St Pete is Mississippi

It is widely understood that Africans in this country were blatantly oppressed during the 1950s and 60s. But as quiet as it's kept in the mainstream media, the conditions faced by the African community in 2011 are equally devastating.

The African working class has been forced to bear the brunt of a profound economic recession that has steadily widened the gap between black poverty and white wealth.

With over three million African people nationally locked into the prison system—behind bars, awaiting trial or on parole through discriminatory sentencing laws feeding a multi-billion dollar prison industry— there are more black people tied to the prison system today than were enslaved in 1850.

South St. Pete under siege, 2011

Besieged by SWAT teams and highly armed militarized police forces, black communities all over this country resemble a US war zone in the Middle East in stark contrast to the peaceful tree-lined neighborhoods of white suburban America.

Since the year 2000 the wealth gap between black families and their white counterparts has widened annually and African unemployment is nearly double that of white people. Targeted by the big banks for discriminatory subprime mortgages hundreds of thousands of African families lost their homes in the first round of foreclosures in 2007.

In St Petersburg, FL conditions of African people are similar to Mississippi with nearly three quarters of the black community living at or near poverty and only 21 percent of African males graduating high school with a diploma.

USM National Convention will build up to the St Pete Freedom Summer Project!

At the upcoming national convention of the USM, themed “Resistance is the Future: Solidarity with African Liberation,” the leadership of the Uhuru Movement will specifically address the white community about the significance of organizing in genuine solidarity with the African community in the struggle for freedom and independence and the USM as the organization that provides us the ability to take that stand.

Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the leader and founder of the Uhuru Movement, will be the keynote speaker at the convention. Penny Hess, chairperson of the African People's Solidarity Committee, will give a presentation on the role of white people in the African Liberation Movement.

Chairman Omali Yeshitela (pictured here in the 1960s) carries the struggle forward into the new era

The Freedom Summer Project will be discussed in detail. Attendees of the convention will be mobilized to join the Freedom Summer and become active participants in the creation of a new world free from exploitation and oppression. Attendees will also benefit from workshops that provide the tools to organize in our own communities.

One of the original Freedom Riders who was arrested in 1961, Richard Gleason, reflected in a recent interview: "I hope young people have a sense of history, but more than that, I hope that they will be inspired to carry the torch on. It's time for each of us to pick up our torch and do what we can for the good of humanity." The Uhuru Movement triumphantly carries on the torch of freedom into a new era of struggle. As a new world struggles to be born, now is our time to decide what side of history we are going to be on.

The old ways of injustice, slavery, and colonialism are dying out, but Resistance is the Future! Solidarity with African Liberation!

Take a stand on the side of the African Liberation Movement! JOIN USM TODAY! Become a Sustaining Member!

REGISTER NOW FOR “RESISTANCE IS THE FUTURE: SOLIDARITY WITH AFRICAN LIBERATION!” JUNE 4-5, PHILADELPHIA!

Are you in a student group or social justice organization who might be interested in the convention and the summer project? LET US KNOW at registration@uhurusolidarity.org

Even if you can't make it to the convention, HELP PROMOTE IT ONLINE! Join the CyberOutreach Team!

RESISTANCE IS THE FUTURE!

FORWARD TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION AND THE FREEDOM SUMMER PROJECT!

UHURU!