Omali
Yeshitela
AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY • POLITICAL THEORETICIAN POWERFUL
SPEAKER • "LAST MAN STANDING"
“You
have the emergence in human society of
this thing called the State.
What is the State?
The State is organized bureaucracy.
It is the police department…the Army, the Navy
It is the prison system, the courts.
The State is a repressive organization.
The reality is
the State becomes necessary
only at that juncture in human society
where it is split between those who have and those
who ain't got!”
From
“Police State,” on let’s get free! by Dead
Prez
Fiery, uncompromising and courageous, Omali Yeshitela is a revolutionary who has struggled and led the movement for African liberation over the past 40 years.
Leader of the Uhuru Movement, and Chairman and founder of the African People’s Socialist Party, Yeshitela continues to be on the frontlines of struggle. He is building African-worker controlled institutions, developing ground-breaking political theory, writing countless books and articles, speaking worldwide, fighting for reparations, galvanizing allies, influencing the popular culture and bringing African people together to liberate Africa and all its resources.
Omali Yeshitela has faced arrests, trials, imprisonment and personal sacrifice in his struggle to complete the Black Revolution of the Sixties. Chairman Omali never stopped building fighting organizations in the interests of the African working community. He survived the US government’s attack on the Black Power Movement of the 1960s that imprisoned, assassinated or silenced most black revolutionaries by driving them underground. For this he has been called “the last man standing.”
Omali
Yeshitela
-
Built and chairs the Black is Back Coalition (BIBC) for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, a broad-based organization spanning the spectrum of African organizations in the US. The BIBC first exposed the neocolonial Obama administration in Nov. 2009 with the demands to stop US imperialist war around the world and against the African community inside this country.
- Was honored by the University of South Florida at a major event in January 2010 unveiling the largest university collection of Yeshitela’s books and writings anywhere in the world.
- Made reparations for African people a household word after he launched the first International Tribunal on Reparations for African People in New York in 1982. The Tribunal ruled that African people are owed $4.1 trillion in reparations for stolen labor alone.
- Built the African Socialist International that held founding conferences in Sierra Leone and Kenya in 2009.
Accomplishments and Honors
| 1966 |
Florida organizer for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) |
| 1967 |
Sentenced to five years for tearing down racist mural that hung in St.
Petersburg, FL city hall |
| 1968 |
Formed JOMO, the Junta of Militant Organizations;
Launched The Burning Spear newspaper |
| 1972 |
Formed African People’s Socialist Party;
On first African Liberation Day Coordinating Committee |
| 1973
| Coordinated 45-mile “Great Long March to Starke,” in defense of
Africans brutalized by guards at Starke prison in Florida |
| 1975 |
Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts, two innocent African men on death
row, freed as a result of the mass campaign led by Omali Yeshitela |
| 1976 |
Formed African People’s Solidarity Committee;
Launched successful campaign to Free Dessie Woods, sentenced to 22
years for defending herself against a white man who tried to rape her |
| 1979 |
Formed African National Prison Organization |
| 1982 |
First Tribunal on Reparations for African People in the US;
Formed African National Reparations Organization |
| 1983 |
Launched campaigns taking over abandoned houses for homeless African families and building Tent
City for the Homeless in Oakland, CA |
| 1986 |
Opened a front of the Uhuru Movement in Philadelphia, PA, following the 1985 city bombing of MOVE
that murdered 11 African men, women and children |
| 1991 |
Founded International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in Chicago, IL |
| 1996 |
Led the community fight-back after the police murder of 18-year-old TyRon Lewis and the police
attack on the Uhuru House |
| 2001 |
Ran for mayor of St. Petersburg, winning all black and mixed precincts but one;
Built Florida Alliance for Peace and Social Justice |
| 2002 |
Led statewide Florida anti-war march, only anti-war march led by African liberation forces in the US;
Formed Citizens United for Shared Prosperity in St. Petersburg, FL |
| 2004 |
Consolidated the African Socialist International (ASI) |
| 2006 |
Founded the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) |
| 2007 |
Founded the African Internationalist Student Organization (AISO);
Keynote speaker, European Foundation for North-South Cooperation’s 1st International Congress, Huelva, Spain |
| 2009 |
Keynote speaker, founding conferences of the African Socialist
International in Kenya and Sierra Leone;
Built the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace
and Reparations which held the first black-led mobilization in
Washington, DC challenging Obama’s wars around the world and
inside the US;
Keynote speaker, Conference on Racism and National Consciousness at the University of Toronto |
| 2010 |
Honored by the University of South Florida at the unveiling of the
university’s special collection of his books and other writings;
Convened the historic Fifth Congress of the African People’s Socialist
Party, held in Washington, DC;
Organized the first Marcus Garvey Legacy Cruise which sailed to
Mexico and Jamaica, visiting the home where Garvey was born and where his relatives still live; |
African Self-Sufficiency Institutions
| 1970s |
Umoja restaurant, St. Petersburg, FL |
| 1980s |
Spear Graphics printing, Oakland, CA |
| 1980 |
African Connection Bookstore, Louisville, KY |
| 1981 |
Florida Black Voice newspaper, Gainesville, FL |
| 1982 |
Uhuru House community centers |
| 1987 |
Uhuru Bakery Café, Oakland, CA |
| 1989 |
Uhuru Furniture Stores in Oakland and Philly |
| 1995 |
TyRon Lewis Community Gym, St. Pete, FL |
| 2006 |
Uhuru Radio |
| 2007 |
UhuruNews.com |
| 1978 |
Tactics and Strategy for Black Liberation in the US |
| 1981 |
The Struggle for Bread, Peace and Black Power |
| 1982 |
Stolen Black Labor |
| 1983 |
Reparations Now! |
| 1984 |
A New Beginning and Not One Step Backwards |
| 1987 |
The Road to Socialism is Painted Black |
| 1992 |
Izwe Lethu i Afrika |
| 2005 |
Omali Yeshitela Speaks |
| 2006 |
One Africa! One Nation! |
| 2010 |
One People! One Party! One Destiny! |
|
Burning Spear
Uhuru Publications
is one of the publishing arms of the African People's Socialist Party, an African
Internationalist organization based in the U.S. with branches around the world.
For more information on the philosophy, work and goals of the African People's
Socialist Party which leads the Uhuru Movement, visit the links
page of this website.
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