On Saturday, August 31, concerned activists and community members from around the U.S. and the African world will gather outside the Uhuru House – one of 7 Uhuru properties raided in 2022 by the FBI – at 11am for a national rally declaring “Not One Step Backwards; Hands Off Chairman Omali Yeshitela!”
The rally takes place a few days before Chairman Omali Yeshitela will be in federal court on September 3 in Tampa, along with Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, facing baseless charges that he is a secret pawn in a Russian government conspiracy to “sow discord” and “interfere in elections”. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison, effectively a life sentence for this 82-year-old veteran of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela began his political life in the 1960s with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) registering Black voters and is remembered for his 1966 act tearing down a racist mural that had hung in St. Petersburg’s City Hall.
He went on to build the Uhuru movement for African liberation, initiating over 50 Black community economic institutions across the U.S. and Africa, such as community gardens, recreation programs, doula training, bakeries, restaurants, furniture stores, disaster relief and farmers markets.
In its April 2023 indictment of Chairman Omali and co-defendants Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel – two leaders of the Uhuru movement’s white solidarity and reparations wing – government prosecutors charge that the Uhuru 3’s call for reparations, opposition to U.S. wars and running candidates for local office were done under the control of Russia. Yeshitela calls this a “racist denial of Black people’s agency. We can think for ourselves and define our own agenda!”
The indictment came nine months after the FBI’s July 29, 2022 violent raid on seven homes and offices of Uhuru leaders in St. Louis, MO and St. Petersburg, FL during which computers, phones, hard drives and files were seized but no arrests were made.
Free speech defenders and social justice activists from around the world will speak at the August 31 rally outside the Uhuru House, including:
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Charles Barron, former NYC Councilman and NY state Assemblyman
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Efia Nwangaza, Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
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Willie Mukasa Ricks, SNCC veteran, coined the “Black Power” demand on the Meredith March
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Benjamin Prado, Union del Barrio
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Jennifer Sullivan, Green Party, Florida
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Barry Bendar, Green Party, New Jersey
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Frank Lawrence, Julian Assange committee
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Ward Churchill, author and COINTELPRO expert
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Natsu Saito, professor and consultant to U.N. Human Rights Council
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Caleb Maupin & John McCarthy, Center for Political Innovation
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Joe Iosbaker, Freedom Road Socialist Organization
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Chrisley Carpio, Students for a Democratic Society
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Paul Pumphrey, Friends of the Congo
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Eman, New Era Young Lords
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Fatima Mevs, Republic of New Afrika
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Omowale Clay, December 12th Committee
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Joseph Nohava, Tampa Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression
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Belinda Parker Brown, Louisiana United International
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Betty Davis, New Abolitionists
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Dr. Aisha Fields, All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project
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Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report
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Jabaar Edmond, Tampa Bay Breakfast Club, WUJM
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Didier Ortiz, Troika Collective
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Jonathan Piper, Partisan Defense Committee
More information can be found at www.handsoffuhuru.org
