#uhuru movement

[afriblaq]

Uhuru 3: Meet Black Liberation Leader Omali Yeshitela; Faces 5 Years in Prison in "Conspiracy" Case

Three activists with the Uhuru Movement will be sentenced by a Florida judge Monday as part of a legal saga that began when the FBI raided the group in 2022, accusing the antiwar Black liberation group of working as Russian agents. The "Uhuru 3" are Omali Yeshitela, chair of the African People's Socialist Party, and white solidarity activists Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel. A jury acquitted them in September of acting as illegal agents of the Russian government, but convicted them on the lesser charge of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government — something they reject. The activists face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine but plan to appeal the ruling. Yeshitela spoke with Democracy Now! ahead of the sentencing hearing and called it "ridiculous" that prosecutors suggested the movement's antiwar position was inspired by Russia. "The Black liberation movement in this country has historically been opposed to those wars, and that's been a strategic problem for the United States," Yeshitela said. "It's a thought crime that they have convicted us for, and we fought it all along, and we continue to fight that."

[aspiringbelle]

On the one hand, it is depressing for the US to be criminalizing their free speech. It's worse that they are still trying the "Russian Agent" canard.

That said, it is nice that the jury acquitted the defendants of actually being foreign agents, which will hopefully help dismiss their case on appeal.

One hopes that the government will go after the actual nations that have interfered in our politics, such as Israel (who also sought to steal our secrets), Ukraine (which admitted interfering, and their American agent, Alexandra Chalupa was praised(!) for it), and the nation that has sought to interfere in our politics longer than any other one, the UK (Their first interference was in 1800, and most recent being Christopher Steele and Simon Bracey-Lane in 2016.)

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Cheryl LaBash

The U.S. government is attempting to criminalize international solidarity but has come up against a solid and growing wall of support for the Uhuru 3 when their federal trial opened Sept. 3 here in Tampa.

Collectively known as the Uhuru 3 — Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, and Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement — are falsely accused of being pawns of a foreign government. And, of course, that foreign government would need to be Russia to justify spending so much on the investigation and what, at the outset, looked like a lengthy trial.

The proverbial election interference elephant in the room is undoubtedly AIPAC and “Israel” that get a free pass. Not to mention the holier-than-thou U.S. government interventions on every continent, “color” revolutions like the one preceding the war in Ukraine.

What an indictment of the U.S. government that it would even suggest that an African freedom organization with a 50-year history would need a foreign power to instruct them to fight for reparations.

[sleepynegress]

A COMPREHENSIVE & AUTHENTIC UHURA LOVE/HISTORY POST

The above is where Roddenberry 1st employed Nichelle Nichols [click to watch the full clip]. It was a military show based on Roddenberry's own experiences, the episode is called To Set it Right (I highly suggest reading the wiki article about it).

You should note two other actors, whom he later pegged for Star Trek are in the episode.

They dated briefly and then became good friends way before Trek came about.

Miss Nichols was already an accomplished singer and dancer who performed regularly w/ Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington

Roddenberry's 1st show, The Lieutenant, was canceled/pulled from the air before these scenes bluntly dealing with racism could air (there's blackface as punishment for the racists at the end of the show, in a case of 'he 'a little confused but got the spirit' for the times, so tw)

He created Star Trek to try to soften the blow of all the social messaging he wanted to insert from his military experience. Star Trek was basically, a submarine drama placed in a sci-fi setting. He made it diverse on purpose because the military helped him travel and serve with all kinds of people. Roddenberry was inspired by that.

Uhura was the first person to read for Spock and in fact, helped to shape the character with her reading and based many of the traits of Uhura (formerly Uhuru) on Spock.

She was basically a glorified secretary. She played the part with poise, joy, and the 60's style womanism she got to play out for those times... Everything from her mini-skirt (which Nichelle herself called very comfortable) to her smile, and teasing lines, and quips were about her playing "big" in a small role. She made every moment, every look, every line, and movement count:

Roddenberry cracked jokes about the fact that the network never figured out that Uhura was fourth in command.

Nichelle was the only main cast member who was not salaried. She was paid by the hour. This attempt at marginalization actually resulted in her being the highest paid at times, because of the long hours.

Nichelle was not let in the front entrance at times, her fan-mail was kept from her, and she grew frustrated with the constant cutting of her scenes, lines and storylines. This is why she justifiably attempted to leave. The bigots in production did not like her being there (and if we're being real, were it not for Janice Rand's actress Grace Lee Whitney having gone through so much and thus losing her job in the 1st season...Uhura might have had even LESS presence)

The lost context in MLK convincing her to stay was that YES she was minimized and could make more money and be more fulfilled on broadway, but her symbolism and presence meant so much at a time when Black women weren't on TV unless as a racist caricature cleaning a house, and even that was rare...that she stayed.

One of her best allies was DeForest Kelly, who threatened to quit if they fired Nichelle. George Takei was her absolute best friend on the show and in life (she served as his Best Woman at his wedding).

There was an unfilmed episode in which Uhura and Deforest would have played reverse roles in "racial dynamics" on a planet they visit

Spock and Uhura were originally supposed to kiss in the alien mind control episode, but Shatner demanded to do so for the publiicity.

Her work to recruit marginalized people as astronauts, as in personally going to colleges and talking to candidates after the show is a staggering achievement that arguably is the most potent of any castmember in any of the Trek series post-show. Sally Ride, Guy Bluford (she personally recruited the 1st woman and 1st black astronaut), Mae Jemison (the 1st black woman credits her for inspiring her to become an astronaut).

Uhura did finally command the ship in the animated series. She would not have gotten to voice the role, but for Leonard Nimoy making it an obligation that all the original actors voice their parts for him to come on.

Scotty and Uhura in the film was definitely a pair the spares situation, in which both were the leftover senior citizens with the writers just going "why not?"

it was beyond insulting and she did protest about the scene where she's bumbling through a giant translation book to speak to klingons for laughs in trek 5 ...but her best moment IMO is her pulling a gun on the young ensign in the transporter room in Trek 3...sadly her ONLY scene in the damn movie.

Miss Saldana got to play to MANY corrections in JJ Abrams rebooted Trek, from being amazing at languages to having an actual life & love, to confidently turning down Kirk at every turn.

FUN FACT!! Both JJ and Bob Orci both expressed disappointed shock that the love story between Spock & Uhura got more hatred from fans than BLOWING UP PLANET VULCAN.

another FUN FACT!! The love story between Spock & Uhura is what grabbed the old school Star Wars fan (JJ Abrams) enough to come aboard to direct. Yep. JJ ships Spock & Uhura.

Zoe's iteration became the 1st version of Uhura to speak confidently in Klingon

Celia Rose Gooding becoming Uhura brings around a lot of Uhura's qualities full circle, IMO. As she is also from theatre (like Nichelle) and has a beautiful singing voice as well as the charm. Zoe's iteration was sharper, and much more protective, professional, & mature, about her life and love.

Celia Rose has the youthful curiousity and stars in her eyes and had vulnerability from her first intro... I loved the eagerness the crew showed to being in her orbit, seeing the glow of her talent and being drawn to that, to have a part in nurturing that.

As I've said... Celia IMO has the most dazzling smile, giant warm brown eyes, fantastic curves, and an energy that feels essentially Uhura, & that is all light, joy, a bit of uncertainty, -from the light singing (!) and the growth to her joy in discovery... I'd love to see her writing move away from serving and be more about her wants needs and growing in friendships/loves.

But Celia is a gift and is perfectly cast.

Essentially Uhura = femininity, graceful carriage, gorgeous smile, excellence in engineering and translation (canon!), ability to sing and play the Vulcan lyre, sharp womanist wit, love for her U.S. of African-Kenyan culture and being beloved by all crew...

When Miss Celia hummed those gorgeous notes to the alien entity on that comet?? That Solidified that she IS Uhura IMO.

I 100% think they fucked up by killing Hemmer, because that mentor-mentee relationship was giving marginalized coming together and bonding over everybody else's bullshit and I was here for it...it was giving me Data and Geordi updated...and since then, IMO they've lost track and given us the same kinda backwards wingwoman role BS, that people who like to pretend to be her fan shoehorn her into.

...but I have high hopes that they'll course-correct.

All this to say ALL OF THE ABOVE is Uhura and anyone calling her ugly, bossy, pushy, annoying, whatever is just sad little hater who doesn't know wtf they are talking about.

[theculturedmarxist]

The Biden administration's Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says "weaponized" the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.

The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.

Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.

Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.

AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ's press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Looks like the United States has decided to dispense with those freedoms as well.

The superseding indictment containing these charges consists of a lot of verbal gymnastics to obfuscate the fact that the DOJ is prosecuting US citizens for speech and political activities in the United States which happen not to align with the wishes of the US government. The grand jury alleges that the aforementioned Ionov "directed" these Americans to "publish pro-Russian propaganda" and "information designed to cause dissention in the United States," which is about as vague and amorphous an allegation as you could possibly come up with. 

For the record Omali Yeshitela, the founder and chairman of the African People's Socialist Party and one of the four Americans named in the indictment, has adamantly denied ever having worked for Russia. Earlier this month before charges were brought against him, the Tampa Bay Times quoted him as saying, "I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever. They know I have never worked for Russia. Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

But it's important to note that this should not matter. Under the First Amendment the government is forbidden to abridge anyone's freedom to speak however they want and associate with whomever they please, which necessarily includes being as vocally pro-Russia as they like and promoting whatever political agendas they see fit, whether that happens to advance the interests of the Russian government or not. The indictment alleges that the four Americans engaged in "agitprop" by "writing articles that contained Russian propaganda and disinformation," but even if we pretend that's both (A) a quantifiable claim and (B) a proven fact, propaganda and disinformation are both speech that the government is constitutionally forbidden from repressing.

It's not reasonable for the government to just dismiss the First Amendment on the grounds that it is being "weaponized". You can't have your government dictating what speech is valid and what counts as "agitprop" and "disinformation", because they'll always define those terms in ways which benefit the government, thus giving more power to the powerful and taking power away from the people. You can't have your government dictating what political groups are legitimate and which ones are tools of a foreign government, because you can always count on the powerful set such designations in ways which benefit themselves. 

There's also the brazen hypocrisy of it all. The US government is constantly engaging in foreign influence operations with outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up to help foment coups and color revolutions and advance US information interests overtly in ways the CIA used to do covertly.

As commentator Brian Berletic noted on Twitter, "The US through the National Endowment for Democracy has created armies of organizations carrying out malign influence operations around the world including here in Thailand. When the Thai government attempts to stop this activity, the US embassy shouts 'free speech.' Thailand's government and others around the world could easily cite this move by the US Justice Department to target and uproot US-funded organizations doing exactly this and worse."

So for the US government to now claim it's legitimate to start throwing US citizens in prison for a decade because they published "propaganda" for another country is absurd, and more than a little scary. The most powerful government in the world needs more political dissent at home, not less, and here they are trying to turn it into a crime.

When they claim the members of the APSP published "propaganda" and promoted "dissention", what they really mean is that they engaged in speech and political activism that the US government does not like. The spinmeisters will try to spin it, the legal mumbo-jumbo will try to obfuscate it, but that's what's happening. Don't let them conceal this from you. They're not worried about Russian propaganda, they're worried you'll stop listening to US propaganda.

[readyforevolution]

Members of the Uhuru Movement, Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel – the “Uhuru 3” – were sentenced to three years probation and community service after being convicted in September 2024 of supposedly conspiring with the Russian government to interfere in U.S. elections. The Black Alliance for Peace recognizes that this sentence is confirmation that the charges against Uhuru members by the Biden Administration Justice Department were baseless.

[ptseti]

WANGARI MAATHAI ON AFRICA’S MICRO NATIONS

On 1 April, the world commemorated Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai’s 84th birthday.

Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an organisation that championed tree planting, environmental conservation and women’s rights.

In 1989, the government of Daniel Moi, who exerted control over the judiciary and turned Kenya into a one-party state, proposed erecting a British-designed and -owned 60-storey glass skyscraper in Uhuru Park, a popular recreational spot in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi. Maathai’s protests were enough to force the government to relent. But that did not come before the government referred to her as a ‘crazy woman’ who, in Moi’s words, should be a proper African woman who respects men and stays quiet.

Maathai developed an environmental consciousness through her ethnic community, the Kikuyu, who revered nature and, therefore, believed in conserving the environment. To the Kikuyu, trees are holy and shouldn’t be cut down. Conserving trees reduces landslides and increases access to underground water.

Maathai also became the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in Kenya, where she served in the parliament and, later, as a minister. Maathai went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

In this clip from an unknown date, Maathai said that before European colonisers arrived in Africa to extract resources, African communities governed themselves, functioned like a well-oiled machine, and economic and social affairs were in the hands of the people. Before colonialism, people, such as the Kush in the Nile River Valley and the Songhai in West Africa, built civilisations on the continent that prioritised nature. Maathai articulated in this clip that colonial oppressors only had one way to subjugate and gain control: Through a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy that would ease colonial extraction. She also replaced the word ‘tribe’ with ‘micro-nation’ to describe our people’s ethnic groups.

Maathai became an ancestor on 25 September 2011. We honour and remember her great works as we celebrate her in a week when she would have turned 84. Rest in power, legend.

[sataniccapitalist]

On Tuesday, September 3, the US government put four Americans citizens, all of whom are currently, or were formerly members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and/or the Uhuru Movement, on trial for “illegally” spreading “pro-Russian propaganda” in order to “cause dissension in the United States and to promote secessionist ideologies.”

[chaosmenu]

this is old news but im thinking about how the federal government raided the st pete hq and revoked $100,000 from the uhuru movements nonprofit arm because of "possible pro-russian sentiment"

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/05/09/the-father-of-kwanzaa/ec0fe360-c895-47d3-a5b6-0a1a09a471b1/

The Father of Kwanzaa

By: Hollie I. West

Published: May 9, 1978

"I created Kwanzaa," laughed M. Ron Karenga like a teenager who's just divulged a deeply held, precisions secret.

"People think it's African. But it's not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!"

The overwhelmingly black audience at Howard University's recent National Conference of Afro-American writers broke into laughter. The joke was on them - and millions of other black Americans who taught Kwanzaa, the seven-day festival of harvest, was African.

Since he created the holiday in 1966, numerous Afro-Americans have come to celebrate the occasion between Dec. 22 and Jan. 1 as an alternative to Christmas.

Nevertheless, the ploy was not malicious. Karenga, political activist in the late '60s, currently a college professor and frequent lecturer asked: "Can you imagine 30 to 40 million people not having one national, non-heroic holiday? We couldn't wait around for someone to do this for us."

In the late '60s and early '70s, he had a profound effect on the thinking of Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) and other Afro-american cultural figures who spread his philosophy.

From his base in Los Angeles, Karenga came to national prominence following the Watts civil disturbance. He was seen frequently on television and made numerous speeches. A civil rights observer called him "one of the leading theoreticians in the national black power movement."

His role was described as a study in contrasts. He urged militant self-defense by blacks, but he also conferred with white politicians on civil rights issues. His bald head and Genghis Khan-styled beard and moustache gave him a fearsome look, but in face-to-face meetings he was calm and soft-spoken.

Using the tough rhetorical style of the '60s, he wrote in "The Quotable Karenga," a thin handbook given to his followers: "When it's burn, let's see how much you burn. When it's kill,' let's see how much you kill. When it's blow up," let's see how much you blow up."

But times have changed. Between 1971 and 1975 he dropped out of sight while serving a prison term for ordering the beating of a woman. He is appealing. Now he was resurfaced and said he is rebuilding his movement.

Although the popularity of Kwanzaa mushroomed dramatically, Karenga also established Kuzaliwa, a tribute honoring Malcolm X's birthday on May 19, and Uhuru Day, a commemoration on Aug. 11 of the 1965 Watts civil disturbance.

The 1960s were a time of fervent cultural activity among blacks. Theater groups and writers workshops sprang up in most large cities. And Karenga took advantage of this.

He spoke to large and small, middle-class and working-class black organizations from CORE to Baptist church groups, carrying the message of Kwanzaa. At the same time, Baraka spoke for the Karenga philosophy to thousands of people at Congress of African Peoples meetings. He also wrote tracts that were published by black publishing houses.

The Kwanzaa idea began to pop up in black mass publications such as Ebony and Jet. From there it was picked up by white publications - daily newspapers and magazines - and radio and television.

Who is this short, squat man with the high-pitched voice and the flery rhetoric, and what is the current measure of his influence?

A. B. Spellman, writer and National Endowment for the Arts official, said: "There was no theory of nationalism in the '60s. What Karenga did was to rationalize the nationalist impulse and try to codify it."

Larry Neal, writer and executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, said: "Vocabulary and Kwanzaa are the major influences he's had. People started studying Swahili. Kwanzaa was like Topsy. It just grew.

"People wanted form, structure. He spoke to a need."

But Baraka, a former black nationalist who's become a Marxist, is not so charitable in his current assessment of the man whose ideas he once proselytized.

Said Baraka: "There was a vacuum created after Malcolm X died . . . Karenga was very well organized. He moved into the vacuum.

"He did a positive thing as far as Kwanzaa was concerned. But in a way it was another form of bourgeois nationalism. And he taught male chauvinsim."

"People have slandered me," complained Karenga. "I's slow building an organization in this atmosphere. There's a lull in the (black liberation) movement and I've got to dismantlef the bogus image that has gone up around me."

In his rapid-fire black preacher's oratory style, marked by staccato rhythms and syncopated long and short phrases, Karenga said, "What I said in the '60s I stand by. I'm still black. I still put black first. I'm still for the cultural revolution. Until somebody develops an alternative, more comprehensive view of reality, I've got to ride with mine."

Karenga was not always so outspokenly black. In the early '60s, he was Ronald Everett, the 14th child in the family of a farmer and part-time Baptist minister in Parsonburg, Md., on the Eastern Shore.

After receiving his master's degree in political science, he dropped his "slave name" and took on Karenga. In 1965 he organized US (as opposed to "them"), and gave himself the title Maulana (Master teacher). In 1976, he received a doctorate in urban development.

He would not say how large his following was before his 1971 imprisonment or how many followers he has currently.

"Our movement has been discredited," he said, "and I'm trying to rebuild it. The day I got out of captivity I went to a meeting."

His goal is to construct a national cultural network among Afro-Americans.

"We don't have a national culture," he explained. "We have a popular culture. We confuse influence with power. Influence is the ability to effect. Power is the ability to change."

--

By: Bruce A. Dixon

Published: Dec 29, 2018

[..]

But for many of us who took part in or were simply aware of the Black Panther Party in the late sixties and early seventies, the Kwanzaa holiday is inseparable from the career and persona of its inventor, Ron Karenga, now a professor in California. Back in the day, Karenga headed up an organization called US. As a tool of COINTELPRO, the federal counterintelligence program directed at movement organizations, Karenga’s US organization murdered two leading members of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins, and two more in San Diego, Sylvester Bell and John Savage.

To my knowledge, Mr Karenga has never expressed the faintest remorse or regret for these murders, or for his part in furthering the nefarious aims of federal and local police agencies in their assault upon the movement of those times.

Karenga was later convicted, along with his wife, of kidnapping and torturing two women in his own organization, a crime for which he served four years in prison, and one of which he still claims to be innocent. Some of Karenga’s close and credible associates however, like former US chair Wesley Kabaila, maintain Karenga was not only responsible for those women’s torture, but that it was part of an ongoing pattern over the years.

“I’m a feminist,” Kiilu Nyasha, a former Black Panther in New Haven, CT told me. “How can I honor a holiday made up by a man who tortures women in his own organization?”

[..]

==

Reminder that Kwanzaa is a fake holiday invented by a black nationalist Neo-Marxist felon who tortured, branded and waterboarded two women.

It has absolutely no African origins. None.

Happy Kwanzaa.

[millionmovieproject]

In this episode, Jared & I talk about a civic group raided without cause, the rise in communal living, some history & warning signs about cults, & I share a couple of weird stories about Jim Jones & Timothy McVeigh.

[workersolidarity]

Watch "DOJ indicts Black radicals for "weaponizing speech"" on YouTube

How long did people who claim to be on the Left insist that censorship under Capitalism wasn't a threat to anyone except Right-wing white nationalists?

Can't make that claim now.

Now we see the FBI raiding the home of 80 year old Black Nationalist Socialist Omali Yeshitela and his wife Ona Zene, leaders of the small but passionate African People's Socialist Party out of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Multiple members of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement as well as the cofounder of the Black Hammer Party along with the leaders of the African People's Socialist Party were all indicted on trumped up charges accusing them of a "plot to promote the political in interests of Russia within the United States."

Back in July, the FBI raided the home and offices of Yeshitela and Zene, throwing smoke bombs through shattered windows and storming in with full camouflage and assault rifles, startling the senior couple in the early hours that morning.

The charges are basically this, that by accepting trips to Moscow and small donations from a Socialist organization with NO evidence of State ties located in Moscow, and by then fielding their own candidates outspoken against the US proxy war in Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Florida, they violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

These kind of minor violations of the statute occur within the two party system everyday, but it's not someone from one of the two Parties being arrested here, instead it's a group of Socialist Black Activists.

This is the two-Party system defending itself and squashing even the tiniest of attempts to defy that system and run independent, Socialist candidates.

Also, this article with more detail from The Real News Network

[t4t4t]

Controversy and criticism [of the Uhuru Movement]

...At the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, the General 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.[19] 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 for this movement.[20]

Russian foreign influence controversy

The Uhuru Movement has been accused by state prosecutors of collaborating with alleged Russian foreign agent Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to sow social divisions in the United States.[21] Members of the group have traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to attend an anti-globalization conference, and the group has also acknowledged that it supports Russia in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.[22][23] On July 29, 2022, the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida, was raided by the FBI due to an indictment by a grand jury alleging a conspiracy between Ionov and the Uhuru movement to spread Russian 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."[24][25] On December 23, 2022, the Uhuru Movement organized an emergency meeting via Zoom, stating that the APSP expected new indictments by the FBI and the Department of Justice "in early January 2023 and possibly sooner", for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[26] On April 18, a federal indictment was unsealed alleging that the Uhuru Movement, including the founder of the African People's Socialist Party, worked on behalf of the Russian government to spread pro-Russian propaganda and influence local elections.[27][28]

[ncfcatalyst]

Black leaders from St. Petersburg indicted by FBI for allegedly "sowing dissent"

“Come out with your hands up,” boomed a voice from a mobile intercom on Jul. 26, 2022. This according to longtime Uhuru Movement leader and Black rights advocate Omali Yeshitela, who at the time was sitting  across the dinner table with his wife, Ona Zené Yeshitela, at their home in St. Louis. Deafening explosions from flashbang grenades began as the 81-year-old Yeshitela descended his staircase…

[euginemicah]

Junet Mohamed Lauds Ruto After Nominating Uhuru Allies to Govt

The Minority Leader in the National Assembly, Junet Mohamed, has commended President William Ruto for his recent decision to nominate close allies of former President Uhuru Kenyatta to key government positions. Speaking during the launch of the Junet Mohamed Football Tournament in Suna East, Migori County, the lawmaker said the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) fully supported the president’s…

[normanthedove]

HANDS OFF UHURU-3 A DECISIVE VICTORY: AS PHYSICIANS, PHARMACISTS, DENTISTS AND NURSE PRACTITIONERS CAN LEARN A VALUABLE LESSON DEVELOPING COALITION IN FIGHTING DOJ/DEA MALICIOUS TARGETING (AN ANALYTICAL-PODCAST)

“NOT ONE DAY, NOT ONE DIME, NOT ONE NICKEL, NOT ONE PENNY” The 83-year-old (Yeshitela) from St. Petersburg, Florida, a 9 year veteran of The United States Army in uniform, serving all around the world in the early 1960’s (Germany, Korea ) only to returned home to Florida an subjected to horrific American Apartheid, Chairman Omali Yeshitela stated: “The only reason we didn’t get prison time is because we fought back against this government attack. We fought! Our lawyers were outstanding! The jury affirmed that we work for Black people, not Russia…It is a precedent-setting case, the first time a foreign agent law has ever been used to target pure political speech. The Hands Off Uhuru! Fightback Coalition is launching a campaign for the repeal of the foreign agent laws…” Jesse Nevel recounted, “On July 29, 2022, they came with hundreds of agents. How much money was spent on that day alone? You have the National Security Division of the Justice Department coordinating the prosecution… …You have an untold amount of resources and focus that the U.S. government tried to bring down against the movement of African people for liberation. And they got their asses handed to them...that is a testament to all of you, but above all, it is a testament to the relentless indestructible leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the African People’s Socialist Party, Deputy Chair Ona Zené Yeshitela…

!What So Proudly We Hail! “WHEN WE FIGHT TOGETHER WE WILL WIN“ Omali Yeshitela, co-founder and leader of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement, left, stands with Jesse Nevel, center, and Penny Hess, right, outside the Sam Gibbons U.S. District Courthouse in Tampa after their sentencing hearings before U.S. District Judge William Jung on Monday. [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD |…