 |
|
– AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS – Contact: Lisa Watson, 612.827.1298, info@burningspearuhuru.com Uhuru
Movement leader Omali Yeshitela launches
As leader of the Uhuru Movement Omali Yeshitela is considered the most powerful proponent of the African Liberation Movement today, as well as the foremost black political thinker of our time. A speaker, activist, theoretician and organizer of campaigns such as “ALL diamonds are blood diamonds,” Yeshitela will launch an international tour this spring, following the publication of his new book, One Africa! One Nation! He
will discuss one of his most important projects, the African
Socialist International (ASI), the organization of African
people from throughout the world organizing for a United States of Africa
as the birthright of African people everywhere. He will also talk about
building the International Tribunal on Reparations for African
People to be held in Berlin, Germany, June 7-10, 2007. Following in the footsteps of previous black leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Mangaliso Sobukwe, Patrice Lumumba and Malcolm X, Omali Yeshitela points to a positive future for the African Continent through the slogan made famous by the Garvey Movement of the 1920s, “Africa for Africans, at home and abroad.” He sends a bold message, calling on African people worldwide to unite their homeland, liberate their people and dispense with colonial borders that continue to divide and oppress. Here is the tentative schedule for the One Africa! One Nation! tour. Events are being added weekly so visit www.burningspearuhuru.com for updates. Feb.
28-Mar. 02 - Washington, DC About Omali Yeshitela – Still fighting the power! Many are familiar with the powerful voice heard in “Wolves” and “Police State” on the Dead Prez album, Lets Get Free. But not enough people know the history and ongoing story of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Black Power Movement and Uhuru Movement leader, who has waged uncompromising community struggle for the past 40 years, despite arrests, imprisonment and personal sacrifice. As a young SNCC organizer, Omali Yeshitela served two years in prison for tearing down a racially offensive mural from the walls of the St. Petersburg City Hall in 1966. Since then he has continued struggling for liberation and justice for African people everywhere. In the 1980s he built the popular movement for reparations to African people, initiating the First International Tribunal on Reparations for African People in the U.S. in 1982, followed by twelve subsequent sessions. The Tribunal ruled that African people in the U.S. are owed $4.1 trillion for stolen labor alone. Over the past two and a half decades he has organized African workers from Brooklyn to Brixton to Johannesburg and founded organizations such as the African National Reparations Organization, the African National Prison Organization, and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. He also built long-term community and economic development institutions in several cities, including Uhuru House community centers, Uhuru Furniture stores, and the TyRon Lewis Community Gym. Always a fighter on the battleground of ideas, he founded The Burning Spear newspaper, continuously published since 1968. He has also written several books, pamphlets and articles. Last year he founded Uhuru Radio, giving African workers a voice on the airwaves. Now Yeshitela travels the world with the mission of African unity and liberation, commanding large audiences in South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Ethiopia, Surinam, Britain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, and coast to coast in the U.S. He is the most outspoken, passionate voice for the unification of Africa and African people everywhere since Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah. For more information and the latest tour schedule visit www.burningspearuhuru.com. One
Africa! One Nation! |
Yeshitela’s
new book, One Africa! One Nation! compiles powerful presentations
by representatives of the ASI, offering a glimpse at efforts to build
that organization and the significance of its emergence in the world.
It includes moving reports by Yeshitela as well as by Africans from
Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa itself. They expose
the basis for poverty and suffering throughout the African world,
and document the expropriation of Africa's resources through the slave
trade, direct colonialism and the economic and political domination
that continues today. The book also offers timely analysis of recent
events including the devastation in black communities after Hurricane
Katrina, and political struggles in Haiti.