African People's Socialist Party
The African People's Socialist Party (APSP) is a pan-Africanist political party and organization working towards reparations for slavery in the United States, identifying ideologically with African internationalism and African socialism.[1] The party was formed in May 1972 by the merger of three black power organizations based in Florida and Kentucky. Omali Yeshitela, one of the original co-founders, leads the APSP as of 2019.[2][1][3]
African People's Socialist Party | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | APSP |
| Chairman | Omali Yeshitela |
| Founded | May 1972 |
| Headquarters | St. Petersburg, Florida |
| Newspaper | The Burning Spear Newspaper |
| Ideology | African internationalism African socialism Communism Anti-colonialism Black power Black nationalism Pan-Africanism Reparations for slavery |
| Political position | Far-left |
| International affiliation | International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement |
| Party flag | |
| Website | |
| apspuhuru.org | |
The APSP's stated goals are "to keep the Black Power Movement alive, defend the countless Africans locked up by the counterinsurgency, and develop relationships with Africa and Africans worldwide".[4]
History edit
The African People's Socialist Party (APSP) was founded in 1972 — emerging from three earlier Black organizations in Florida, namely: the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), the Black Rights Fighters, and the Black Study Group. JOMO, the most influential of the three organizations, was a Black organization led by Omali Yeshitela that protested against racial discrimination, police brutality, and abuses against people of African descent in Florida. Yeshitela founded APSP in 1972 and became its chairman.[2] That same year, the APSP adopted the oldest black power newspaper in the U.S. — The Burning Spear Newspaper as its official publication.[3] The APSP is an African internationalist and African socialist organization. According to historian Harvey Klehr, the APSP styles its members as "true, genuine communists."[1][3]
The APSP established the African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC) in 1976. The APSC is a European and European American organization "that works in solidarity with the struggle for African liberation and the unification of Africa and African people worldwide." The role of the APSC is to raise funds through donation campaigns and to carry out the economic development campaigns of the APSP.
In September 1979, the party founded the African National Prison Organization (ANPO); the decision to form the ANPO was decided following a September 4, 1977 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. During the meeting, several Black nationalist organizations declared the importance of, and the need for developing greater unity between pro-Black independence and prison forces. It was decided that the ANPO "would be the gateway to building a national liberation front." Additionally, the participants at the meeting established five principles as the basis for forming the ANPO, which were self-determination, political independence, anti-imperialism, anticolonialism, and self-defense.[5]
In 1981, the party moved its national office from Florida to Oakland, California, and opened the Uhuru house.[2] The first party congress was held in Oakland in 1982. At that congress, the party passed a resolution to create the African Socialist International (ASI) organization. The ASI sought to be the "international party of the African working class",[6] and has held conferences in various countries outside the United States.
The APSP founded the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO) in 1982, and the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People was held in Brooklyn, New York.[7] On its official website, the APSP claims that "through this work, the African People's Socialist Party gave birth to the modern Reparations Movement."[8] Authors Michael T. Martin and Marilyn Yaquinto however posit that, in the National Black Political Assembly's (NBPA) Black Agenda report published in 1974, the NBPA first "endorsed the concept of African American reparations." Citing Ida Hakim (Hakim, I. T., Reparations, the Cure for America's Race Problem. Hampton. Va.; U.B. and U.S. Communication System, 1994), the authors however went on to write that: "The African National Reparations Organization linked to the African People's Socialist Party has conducted yearly tribunals on U.S. racism since 1982 and demanded $4.1 trillion in reparations for stolen labor."[9] That financial reparation was initially demanded at the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People's 1982 meeting, which concluded that, "the United States owed $4.1 trillion for the crime of genocide against African Americans and the unpaid labor provided by them and their descendants during the period of slavery."[7] The stated objective of the movement is to obtain compensation for the injustices of slavery, as well as segregation and neocolonialism since then.[7][9]
In the mid-1990s, the party's national office moved back to St. Petersburg, Florida.[2]
2023 federal indictment edit
The APSP and its sister organization the Uhuru Movement were investigated by state prosecutors for allegedly collaborating with alleged Russian foreign agent Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to sow social divisions in the United States.[10] Members of the APSP and Uhuru Movement attended an anti-globalization conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.[10][11] The Uhuru Movement supports Russia's invasion and subsequent occupation of eastern Ukraine,[12][11] which it interprets from an anti-colonialist perspective as a justifiable response to NATO provocation.[13] On April 18, 2023, a federal indictment was unsealed alleging that the Uhuru Movement, including the APSP founder and chairman Omali Yeshitela, worked on behalf of the Russian government to spread pro-Russian propaganda and influence local elections, without registering as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[14][15][16][17] In a June 2023 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Yeshitela dismissed the charges as a baseless attempt by the Biden administration to limit free speech and thus stifle Ukraine war debate.[18]
References edit
- ^ a b c Klehr, Harvey, Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, Transaction Publishers (1988), p. 118-119, ISBN 9781412823432 [1] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ a b c d Shujaa, Mwalimu J.; Shujaa, Kenya J.; The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America, SAGE Publications (2015), p. 316 ISBN 9781506300504 [2] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ a b c The Weekly Challenger, The Burning Spear celebrates 50 years, December 20, 2018 [3] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ "African People's Socialist Party-USA - History". asiuhuru.org. African People's Socialist Party. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
- ^ Umoja, Akinyele; Stanford, Karin L.; Young, Jasmin A.; Black Power Encyclopedia: From "Black is Beautiful" to Urban Uprisings, ABC-CLIO (2018), p. 811, ISBN 9781440840074 [4] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ Yeshitela, Omali. "Main Resolution (2004)". asiuhuru.org. African Socialist International. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
- ^ a b c Araujo, Ana Lucia, Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History, Bloomsbury Publishing (2017), p. 159, ISBN 9781350010604 [5] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ The African People’s Socialist Party-USA official website. "History" : Founding of the African People's Socialist Party, [6] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ a b Martin, Michael T.; and Yaquinto, Marilyn; (contributors: Lyons, David; and Brown, Michael K.), Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States: On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies, Duke University Press (2007), p. 362, ISBN 9780822389811[7] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)
- ^ a b "Russian charged with using US groups to spread propaganda". AP NEWS. 2022-07-29. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
- ^ a b "FBI investigating Russian interference possibly linked to St. Petersburg Uhuru Movement". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
- ^ Mazzei, Patricia (2022-07-29). "Russian National Charged With Spreading Propaganda Through U.S. Groups". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
- ^ . Archived from the original on 2023-06-05. Retrieved 2023-06-05.
- ^ Poirot, Collin P.; Shahshahani, Azadeh (25 April 2023). "The DOJ Is Using "Foreign Agents" Accusations to Repress Black Liberation Organizers". Retrieved 18 August 2023.
- ^ "St. Petersburg Uhuru members indicted in Russian influence case". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
- ^ "US charges 4 Americans, 3 Russians in election discord case". AP NEWS. 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
- ^ "U.S. issues fresh charges over alleged Moscow influence campaign". Reuters. 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
- ^ Video on YouTube
External links edit
- The Bridge, A Day of Reparations Stops in Portland by Rory Elliott, November 21, 2018 [8] (Retrieved 19 April 2019)