Black Hammer Party

Early history Prior to creation of the group, its leading members were members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP). Gazi Kodzo (born Augustus Cornelius Romain Jr.), who would later become the leader of the Black Hammer Party, served as the Secretary General of APSP. The APSP was accused of being "a cult", and the leader of APSP, Omali Yeshitela, allegedly traveled to Russia in May 2015 to attend a conference hosted by Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, where Yeshitela was said to have been recruited into an influence operation led by Ionov. Around November 2018, Kodzo left the African People's Socialist Party, and founded the Black Hammer Party a few months after. The group was founded as the Black Hammer Organization in 2019 in Atlanta by "a handful of activists with backgrounds in radical Black communist organizing." By 2020, membership increased significantly following the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests across the United States, with the organization amassing "hundreds" of members and chapters across the country. In the same year, the Black Hammer Party also established a chapter in Colorado and became "a visible part of Denver’s leftist activist scene". According to The Forward, the group's membership began to decline around early August 2021 due to "Kevin Rashid Johnson of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party [accusing] the organization of being an undercover right-wing group trying to sow division within leftist movements." The organization under Kodzo's leadership has also opposed vaccination for COVID-19, and on September 15, 2021, led a protest outside the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in support of rapper Nicki Minaj, who at the time claimed to not have been vaccinated. In December of the same year, Kodzo also claimed to have formed an alliance with far-right organization Proud Boys, and hosted a podcast alongside Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, claiming to be forming a "coalition to defeat the disgusting pedo-loving, welfare economy demoncrats [sic] and their puppet master, Big Pharma." Both organizations shared the belief that the 2020 US presidential election had been "stolen" from President Donald Trump. In 2021, Kodzo began to distance himself from Black Lives Matter. They stated that this was "because of my stance on pedophilia and the fact that I started reading the Bible more." The group named it the “Revolutionary Church”, with Kodzo becoming the "revivalist preacher". It was referred to as a "no-whites zone". Black Hammer Party claimed that Ammons was murdered by SWAT responders. Gazi Kodzo was arrested and charged with aggravated sodomy, conspiracy, false imprisonment, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and street gang activity. Another man, an associate of Kodzo named Xavier H. Rushin, was arrested and charged with kidnapping, assault, false imprisonment, and street gang activity. Rushin took a plea bargain which includes both a sentence of 20 years in the Georgia state prison system with the possibility of parole on July 2025 and to give witness testimony during the state of Georgia's case against Kodzo. The group was under joint investigation by the FBI and local authorities. According to a local street gang investigator, the group had been under surveillance by police for months prior to the incident. Kodzo's release and aftermath On January 29, 2025, the District Attorney's Office of Fayette County, Georgia decided to drop all charges against Kodzo. Chief assistant prosecutor David Studdard explained that "the expected testimony by [Rushin] and other key witnesses was unreliable and the case had languished too long". Furthermore, according to Studdard, Kodzo's lawyers claimed that Kodzo was thereby "out of the activist business". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that "the Kodzo is free but his Black Hammer Party is in shambles", as "the group’s many social media channels have been dormant for the past year or longer, the last posts switching between posting pro-Russian propaganda and raising money for Kodzo’s criminal defense." In December 2024, Gazi Kodzo was still referred to as the party's leader in present tense, but by late January 2025, they were described as the former leader instead. Given Kodzo's hegemonic position in the party, its complete inactivity, and no known new leader or notable members, the party is presumed to have been dissolved. == Ideology ==

The Black Hammer Party called for a black and Native American-led revolution and a separate homeland, as well as reparations from white "colonizers." The Black Hammer Party claimed to represent the Black and Native American people of the United States, and it advocated an anti-capitalist revolution, a separate homeland and financial reparations from 'white colonizers'. The group was known for its incendiary claims, such as arguing that Anne Frank did not deserve sympathy because had she survived the Holocaust, she would have become a 'European colonizer' and 'oppressor' through participating in the Nakba; the party's members announced their plans to burn copies of Anne Frank’s diary. The party was described as a "far-left extremist group", and a "radical, paramilitary organization" that plans to "take back the land from white people." It considered itself a "symbol of hope for the colonized poor and working class" and argued that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, police brutality and other social issues disproportionaly affect people of color, it was necessary to establish a separate nation for them, as the “Colonized people need their own land, their own space, their own modes of production in order to advance an anti-colonial struggle any higher.” Some members of the party claimed that it "seemed like an ideal leftist activist group for people of color", and praised Romaine's "anti-colonial analysis" and their ability to "get into the weeds on Maoism". == Alleged Russian influence ==

On July 29, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice made public information about alleged Russian influence operations involving collaboration with American political organizations. It did not name the groups directly. However, based on the released information, the Black Hammer Party (allegedly "U.S. Political Group 2" in the released document) was among the groups implicated in these activities, according to multiple media reports. According to these reports, the Black Hammer Party had received funding from Russian citizen Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, an individual with connections to the Russian government. This would have been used to fund the group's protest at the headquarters of Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, due to the latter's censorship of posts supporting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On September 12, 2024 Kodzo, along with Omali Yeshitela and 2 other African People's Socialist Party members, were found guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. § 951: Conspiracy to Act as an Agent of a Foreign Government. On December 9th, 2024, Kodzo was sentenced to 5 years of probation. == Notes ==