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African People's Socialist Party | |
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| Abbreviation | APSP |
| Chairman | Omali Yeshitela |
| Founded | May 1972; 53 years ago (1972-05) |
| Merger of | Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO) Black Rights Fighters (BRF) Black Study Group (BSG) |
| Newspaper | The Burning Spear |
| Ideology | |
| International affiliation | African Socialist International |
| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| apspuhuru.org | |
| Part ofa series on |
| Pan-Africanism |
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TheAfrican People's Socialist Party (APSP) is acommunist,African internationalistpolitical party in the United States. APSP leads its sister organization, the Uhuru Movement (pronounced/ʊhʊrʊ/,Swahili for "freedom").[1] APSP formed in 1972 from the merger of three priorBlack Power organizations.[2]
APSP supportsreparations for slavery in the United States,communism, andAfrican internationalism, which it says provides ahistorical materialist explanation for the social and economic conditions of African people worldwide.[3] APSP organizes protests and runs candidates to shift the capitalist system.
Notable APSP members includeOmali Yeshitela, who has been APSP chairman since 1972.[3][4]: 316 [5][1] In 2024, four leading APSP members, including Yeshitela, were convicted of conspiring to act asunregistered foreign agents of theRussian government but were found not guilty of acting as agents of Russia.[6] They cooperated withAlexander Ionov, head of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia.[7] They were sentenced to probation and community service.[8]
APSP supports "African Internationalism" andcommunism.[3][5] APSP is strongly inspired byMarcus Garvey.[2][9][10] APSP's stated goals are "to keep the Black Power Movement alive, defend the countless Africans locked up by thecounterinsurgency, and develop relationships with Africa and Africans worldwide".[2] APSP's Constitution defines it as the "advanced detachment of the African working class and its general staff," pursuing the goal of "the liberation and unification of Africa and African people under the leadership of the African working class" and overthrowingimperialism.[11] APSP's platform calls for the release of all African prisoners in US prisons ("concentration camps") and the withdrawal of police forces ("illegitimate standing army") from African American communities.[12]
APSP's African Internationalism argues that "capitalism is inherently parasitic", because capitalism could only develop through the enslavement of African people and colonization of Africa, which provided theprimitive accumulation necessary to buildEuropean imperialism.[13] African Internationalists "deny that there has ever been anything progressive about capitalism", in rejection ofKarl Marx'sview, and argue that "Capitalism is imperialism developed to its highest stage, not the other way around," in rejection ofLenin'sview.[14] APSP rejectsPan-Africanism as a "petty bourgeois" ideology and lauds African Internationalism as "21st centuryGarveyism", an ideology for the working class.[9]
APSP has created many support organizations, including:The Burning Spear (newspaper, 1968-), Uhuru Movement (1972-), African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC, for White supporters, 1979-), African National Prison Organization (ANPO, for inmates, 1979-), African Socialist International (ASI, international org, 1982-), African National Reparations Organization (ANRO, 1982-), International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM, 1991-), and African National Women's Organization (ANWO, 2015-).
The Burning Spear Newspaper is a print andonline newspaper, founded in 1968[5] byOmali Yeshitela as a newspaper for the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO).[15][2][16][17] In its organizational pamphlet, JOMO states that the acronymjomo translated meansburning spear.[18]The Burning Spear's first issue was printed on December 22, 1969.[17] Since 1972,The Burning Spear has been published by the APSP. The paper has published work by influential Black Power authors, includingAssata Shakur.[19]
In 1968,Omali Yeshitela created the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), a Black Power organization that protested againstracial discrimination,police brutality, and abuses against people of African descent in Florida.[4] JOMO was modelled after theBlack Panther Party.[2] Yeshitela gained notice after he tore down a racist mural inSt. Petersburg,Florida's City Hall. The wall remains blank today.[5]
In 1972, three Black Power organizations inFlorida andKentucky merged to create APSP: JOMO, the Black Rights Fighters (BRF), and the Black Study Group (BSG). JOMO, chaired by Yeshitela, was the most influential of the three.[4] The Uhuru Movement was also created in 1972.[2] After the merger, Yeshitela became the chairman of APSP and of Uhuru, which shifted their focus fromBlack Power towardPan-Africanism.[4]
In 1979, APSP created the African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC), through which White APSP supporters to organize for reparations.[20][citation needed]
In September 1979, APSP created the African National Prison Organization (ANPO), which had five principles:Self-determination, political independence,anti-imperialism,anti-colonialism, andself-defense. APSP decided to form ANPO after a September 4 meeting with several Black nationalist organizations, which declared need to develop greater unity between Black independence groups and "prison forces".[21]
In 1981, the APSP moved its national office from Florida toOakland,California, and opened the Uhuru House.[4]
In 1982, APSP held its 1st party Congress. APSP created the African Socialist International (ASI). APSP called for all Africansocialists to unite into one all-African socialist movement, with the eventual goal ofone African state.[22] The ASI seeks to be the "international party of the African working class".[23][citation needed]
In 1982, APSP created the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO), which held the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People inBrooklyn, New York.[24] That tribunal concluded that, "the United States owed $4.1 trillion for the crime ofgenocide against African Americans and the unpaid labor provided by them and their descendants during the period ofslavery."[24] The stated objective of the movement is to obtain compensation for the injustices of slavery, as well assegregation andneocolonialism since then.[24][25] From 1982 to 1994, APSP and ANRO conducted a yearly tribunal onracism in the United States and reparations for stolen labor.[25]
APSP claims that "through this work, the [APSP] gave birth to the modern Reparations Movement."[2] However, Michael Martin and Marilyn Yaquinto argue that theNational Black Political Assembly (NBPA)'sBlack Agenda report (published 1974) first "endorsed the concept of African American reparations".[25]
In the 1990s, tensions were high between the police inSt. Petersburg, Florida and the Uhuru Movement. Members of the Uhuru Movement frequently protested against the police's treatment of African Americans, usually after the murders of African Americans by police. On October 25, 1996,riots in St. Petersburg, Florida erupted after a White police officer shot and killed a young, unarmed Black man driving a stolen car. Cars and buildings were torched and rocks were tossed at the police officers at the scene of the shooting. At least 20 protesters were arrested.[26] The next day, a large group of Uhuru members went back to the scene and called for the release of the arrested protesters. Most of the protests organized by Uhuru remained peaceful.[27][28] Sobukwe Bambaata, one of the Uhuru members, stated that the rioting would have never occurred "if the police did not come into our community and treat us like dogs".[29]
In the mid-1990s, APSP and the Uhuru House moved back toSt. Petersburg,Florida.[4]
In 2004, Uhuru chairman Omali Yeshitela tore down a Halloween display in St. Petersburg, Florida, which depicted "a stuffed figure hung by the neck on a homemade gallows". Subsequent opinions and letters to theSt. Petersburg Times criticized both the Uhuru Movement and Yeshitela's conduct.[30][31]
In 2008, Uhuru received national attention during when Uhuru member Diop Olugbala interruptedpresidential candidateBarack Obama at a town hall in St. Petersburg to ask him "What about the black community?" Olugbala argued that Obama was not speaking out for Africans on issues such as police brutality, high unemployment, predatory lending, andHurricane Katrina.[32][33]
In 2009, theAnti-Defamation League criticized Uhuru's demonstrations on January 3, 2009, asanti-Israel andanti-Zionist.[34]
In 2009, the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) organized a march in support ofLovelle Mixon and against theOakland Police Department. Mixon was anOakland, California residentwho had killed four Oakland police officers and died during a shootout after a traffic stop, coincidentally just blocks away from the local Uhuru headquarters.[35][36]
In 2015, at theJohannes Gutenberg University inMainz, Germany, theGeneral Students' Committee (AStA) broke apart in April 2015 as a consequence of internal dispute over purported antisemitism after having organized an information event about the Uhuru Movement on JGU campus in January.[37] The AStA distanced itself both from the Uhuru Movement, African People's Socialist Party and its leader Omali Yeshitela stating that "the struggle against racism and the consequences of colonialism should not blind us to other reactionary ideologies" and regretted providing a platform to the movement.[38]
In 2022, APSP and Uhuru supported Russia'sinvasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine,[39][40] which it views as a "defensive war against the world colonial powers" and an appropriate response toNATO expansion.[41] In 2022, APSP and Uhuru members attended ananti-globalization conference inSt. Petersburg, Russia.[42][40]
In 2022, APSP and Uhuru, including chairmanYeshitela, were investigated by state prosecutors for allegedly collaborating with Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to spread pro-Russian propaganda and to sow social divisions in the United States.[42][43][44] Ionov founded the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia. US prosecutors described him as aRussianforeign agent under the direction of theFederal Security Service (FSB).[44][45][43]
In 2022, on July 29, the Uhuru House inSt. Petersburg, Florida, was raided by theFBI due to an indictment by a grand jury alleging a conspiracy between Ionov and the Uhuru movement to spreadRussian disinformation under the guise of domestic political movements. An FBI Tampa Special agent said that "The facts and circumstances surrounding this indictment are some of the most egregious and blatant violations we've seen by the Russian government in order to destabilize and undermine trust in American Democracy."[46][47] APSP described the raids as a "hysterical response to the United States' loss of legitimacy".[48]
In April 2023, theDepartment of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a federal indictment alleging that APSP and Uhuru worked on behalf of the Russian government without registering as a foreign agent under theForeign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[49][50][51]The Nation described this as the DOJ "using 'foreign agents' accusations to repress Black liberation organizers".[52] In June 2023, Yeshitela interviewed withAmy Goodman ofDemocracy Now! and dismissed the charges as a baseless attempt by theBiden administration to limit free speech.[53]
In October 2024, four leading members of APSP and Uhuru, including chairman Yeshitela, were convicted in federal court of conspiring to act asunregistered foreign agents of theRussian government. APSP members were found guilty on conspiring with Aleksandr Ionov to interfere in U.S. elections and sow social division in the United States.[45][43] APSP members were found not guilty of acting as agents of Russia.[6] In December 2024, Yeshitela and two other defendants avoided prison time in the Uhuru-Russian case when District JudgeWilliam Jung sentenced them to three years of probation.[8]
The table below lists the Plenaries (annual) and Congresses (every 3 years until 2013, then every 5 years) of the APSP.
| Name | Date | Location | Attendees | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Plenary | April 17-19, 2026 | St. Louis,Missouri | ||
| 8th Congress | 2023 | |||
| 2022 Plenary | February 11-14, 2022 | virtual | ||
| 2021 Plenary | February 6–9, 2021 | virtual | ||
| 7th Congress | October 6–12, 2018 | St. Louis,Missouri | not stated[54] | |
| 2017 Plenary | January 7–9, 2017 | St. Petersburg,Florida | "over 100 comrades"[55] | |
| 2016 Plenary | January 9–10, 2016 | St. Petersburg,Florida | not stated[56] | |
| 2015 Plenary | April 25–26, 2015 | St. Petersburg,Florida | ||
| 6th Congress | December 7–13, 2013 | St. Petersburg,Florida | ||
| 2012 Plenary | February 18–21, 2012 | St. Petersburg,Florida | not stated[57] | |
| 5th Congress | July 10-14, 2010 | Washington, DC | not stated[58] | |
| 2009 Plenary | July 25–28, 2009 | |||
| 2006 Plenary | July 3–4, 2006 | St. Petersburg,Florida | not stated[59] | |
| 1st Congress | September 5–6, 1981 | Oakland,California |
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