Origins In 1968,
Omali Yeshitela created the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), a Black Power organization that protested against
racial discrimination,
police brutality, and abuses against people of African descent in Florida. In September 1979, APSP created the African National Prison Organization (ANPO), which had five principles:
Self-determination, political independence,
anti-imperialism,
anti-colonialism, and
self-defense. APSP decided to form ANPO after a September 4 meeting with several Black nationalist organizations, which declared need to develop greater unity between Black independence groups and "prison forces".
1980s In 1981, the APSP moved its national office from Florida to
Oakland,
California, and opened the Uhuru House. The ASI seeks to be the "international party of the African working class". In 1982, APSP created the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO), which held the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People in
Brooklyn, New York. That tribunal 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." APSP claims that "through this work, the [APSP] gave birth to the modern Reparations Movement." The next day, a large group of Uhuru members went back to the scene and called for the release of the arrested protesters. Most of the protests organized by Uhuru remained peaceful. Sobukwe Bambaata, one of the Uhuru members, stated that the rioting would have never occurred "if the police did not come into our community and treat us like dogs". In the mid-1990s, APSP and the Uhuru House moved back to
St. Petersburg,
Florida. In 2008, Uhuru received national attention during when Uhuru member Diop Olugbala interrupted
presidential candidate Barack Obama at a town hall in St. Petersburg to ask him "What about the black community?" Olugbala argued that Obama was not speaking out for Africans on issues such as police brutality, high unemployment, predatory lending, and
Hurricane Katrina. In 2009, the
Anti-Defamation League criticized Uhuru's demonstrations on January 3, 2009, as
anti-Israel and
anti-Zionist. In 2009, the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) organized a march in support of
Lovelle Mixon and against the
Oakland Police Department. Mixon was an
Oakland, California resident
who had killed four Oakland police officers and died during a shootout after a traffic stop, coincidentally just blocks away from the local Uhuru headquarters.
2010s In 2015, 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. 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 to the movement.
2023 federal indictment In 2022, APSP and Uhuru supported Russia's
invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine, In 2022, APSP and Uhuru members attended an
anti-globalization conference in
St. Petersburg, Russia. In 2022, APSP and Uhuru, including chairman
Yeshitela, were investigated by state prosecutors for allegedly collaborating with Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to spread pro-Russian propaganda and to sow social divisions in the United States. In 2022, on July 29, 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." APSP described the raids as a "hysterical response to the United States' loss of legitimacy". In April 2023, the
Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a federal indictment alleging that APSP and Uhuru worked on behalf of the Russian government without registering as a foreign agent under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The Nation described this as the DOJ "using 'foreign agents' accusations to repress Black liberation organizers". In June 2023, Yeshitela interviewed with
Amy Goodman of
Democracy Now! and dismissed the charges as a baseless attempt by the
Biden administration to limit free speech. In October 2024, four leading members of APSP and Uhuru, including chairman Yeshitela, were convicted in federal court of conspiring to act as
unregistered foreign agents of the
Russian government. APSP members were found guilty on conspiring with Aleksandr Ionov to interfere in U.S. elections and sow social division in the United States. APSP members were found not guilty of acting as agents of Russia. In December 2024, Yeshitela and two other defendants avoided prison time in the Uhuru-Russian case when District Judge
William Jung sentenced them to three years of probation. == National conventions ==