| African People's Socialist Party | |
| Abbreviation: | APSP |
| Merger: | Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO) Black Rights Fighters (BRF) Black Study Group (BSG) |
| Newspaper: | The Burning Spear Newspaper |
| Ideology: | African internationalism African socialism Communism Pan-Africanism Reparations for slavery |
| International: | African Socialist International |
| Chairman: | Omali Yeshitela |
| Flag: | Flag of the APSP.svg |
| Position: | Far-left |
| Country: | United States |
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 create in May 1972 by the merger of three black power organizations based in Florida and Kentucky. Omali Yeshitela has been chairman of the APSP since 1972.[1] [2] [3] [4] The APSP leads its sister organization, the Uhuru Movement. Uhuru, pronounced, is Swahili for "freedom".
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".[5]
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]
According to its Constitution, the African People's Socialist Party is 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 as a critical component of the struggle to overthrow imperialism."[6]
In 1972, the APSP was created as a merger of three earlier Black organizations in Florida: the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), the Black Rights Fighters (BRF), and the Black Study Group (BSG). 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 became the chairman of APSP.[2]
In 1979, the APSP established the African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC), an organization for European and European American "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.[7]
In 1981, the APSP moved its national office from Florida to Oakland, California, and opened the Uhuru house.[2]
In 1982, the APSP held its party congress in Oakland. The APSP passed a resolution to create the African Socialist International (ASI), and which called for all African socialists to unite into one all-African socialist movement, with the eventual goal of one African state. Although ASI pursues pan-Africanism, its primary aim is socialist revolution led by the African working class.[8] The ASI seeks to be the "international party of the African working class".[9]
In 1982, the APSP founded the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO), which held the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People in Brooklyn, New York.[10] On its official website, the APSP claims that "through this work, the African People's Socialist Party gave birth to the modern Reparations Movement."[11] 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."[12] 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."[10] The stated objective of the movement is to obtain compensation for the injustices of slavery, as well as segregation and neocolonialism since then.[10] [12] APSP chairman Omali Yeshitela has argued that African people worldwide are due reparations for more than slavery, but also over 500 years of colonialism and neocolonialism.[13]
In the mid-1990s, the party's national office moved back to St. Petersburg, Florida.[2]
The Uhuru Movement supports Russia's invasion and subsequent occupation of eastern Ukraine,[14] which it views from an anti-colonialist perspective as an appropriate response to what it perceives as NATO expansionism.[15] Members of the APSP and Uhuru Movement attended an anti-globalization conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.[16]
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.[17] 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).[18] [19] [20] [21]
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.
The Burning Spear Newspaper is a print and online newspaper, founded in 1968 by Omali Yeshitela as a newspaper for the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO).[22] [23] [24] [25] In its organizational pamphlet, JOMO states that the acronym jomo translated means burning spear.[26] The Burning Spears first issue was printed on December 22, 1969. Since 1972, The Burning Spear has been published by the APSP.
The paper seeks to "bring voice to the most oppressed and exploited sectors of the African world", as well as combat "White Power imperialism", "media propaganda", and the "monopoly on the distribution of ideas".[27] The paper has published work by influential Black Power authors, including Assata Shakur.[28]