40 Facts About Omali Yeshitela

Omali Yeshitela was born on Joseph Waller on October 9,1941 and is an African revolutionary, political leader, theoretician and author.

Omali Yeshitela is the founder and chairman of the African People's Socialist Party, which leads the Uhuru Movement.

Omali Yeshitela is credited with popularizing the demand for reparations to African people in the US and worldwide, having served as the People's Advocate at the First International Tribunal on Reparations to Black People in the US, held in Brooklyn, NY in 1982.

Omali Yeshitela is the author of numerous books and pamphlets including Vanguard: Advanced Detachment of the African Revolution and An Uneasy Equilibrium: The African Revolution versus Parasitic Capitalism.

Omali Yeshitela was raised in a community formerly known as the Gas Plant District, an African community on the South Side of St Petersburg.

Omali Yeshitela attended Jordan Elementary School, Sixteenth Street Junior High School, and Gibbs High School as a youth.

Yeshitela belongs to what historian Donna Murch calls "the Black Power Generation", black working class activists who came of age between the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till and the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X Yeshitela is less than two months younger than Till and was 13 years old when the 14-year-old Till was lynched in Drew, Mississippi on August 28,1955.

Omali Yeshitela has noted that the lynching of Till impacted his worldview, and the worldview of Black People in the United States.

That is when Omali Yeshitela decided to leave school and join the United States Army.

Omali Yeshitela has noted that it was in Germany where he began to learn about imperialism.

In Fort Benning, Georgia, Omali Yeshitela was accused of attempting to hold the hand of a white woman at a snack bar because he refused to drop money in her hand.

Omali Yeshitela began a leafleting campaign that opposed the conditions of African people in the US and in the US military.

Omali Yeshitela received an honorable discharge from the army days later.

Omali Yeshitela became an active member in the Civil Rights Movement and budding Black Power Movement upon his return to Central Florida.

Omali Yeshitela returned to St Petersburg, Florida following his discharge from the US Army.

Omali Yeshitela worked in many fields such as manual labor in a carpet sales and installation warehouse, and as a "copy boy", a proofreader and an apprentice printer for the St Petersburg Times.

Omali Yeshitela became involved with other college students who organized against the Jim Crow policies in St Petersburg, Florida.

Omali Yeshitela attended meetings and participated in some actions led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People but did not agree with their tactics and objectives.

Omali Yeshitela explored the Nation of Islam because of his love for Malcolm X but did not choose to join them.

Omali Yeshitela became associated with the Congress of Racial Equality.

Omali Yeshitela was an organizer for a voter registration and education project in African communities of North Florida.

Omali Yeshitela participated in the Civil Rights Movement in his youth during the 1950s and 1960s as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

In 1966, Omali Yeshitela organized the first membership-based SNCC chapter.

Omali Yeshitela had intervened into radical thought with his differentiation between colonialism and racism.

Omali Yeshitela spoke of the exploitative insurance that the African working class had to endure in St Petersburg, Florida.

Omali Yeshitela was sentenced to five years in state prison for the mural incident.

Omali Yeshitela created JOMO while he was incarcerated, serving time for the December 1966 mural incident.

The Burning Spear was first produced by the Junta of Militant Organizations, the organization that Omali Yeshitela formed in 1968.

Omali Yeshitela has described The Burning Spear as a dual and contending power institution.

Omali Yeshitela co-founded the African People's Socialist Party in May 1972 through the fusion of three Florida-based organizations: the Junta of Militant Organizations, based in St Petersburg, Florida, led by Omali Yeshitela, the Black Rights Fighters based in Ft.

Omali Yeshitela stated early on that the mission of the APSP was to "complete the Black Revolution of the Sixties," describing a period of defeat resulting from the counterinsurgency war enacted by the US government against the Black Power movement of the 1960s.

Omali Yeshitela writes that the goal of the African People's Socialist Party was:.

Omali Yeshitela moved to Oakland, California in 1981, living and working there.

Omali Yeshitela served on St Petersburg Mayor David Fischer's Challenge 2001 Steering Committee and on the St Petersburg Housing Authority's Hope VI Advisory Committee, two projects dedicated to attracting jobs and investment to South St Petersburg.

Omali Yeshitela has chaired the political action committee of the Coalition of African American Leadership, made up of a number of black churches and civil rights groups in the area, and served on the board of radio station WMNF community radio.

Omali Yeshitela is the founder of Citizens United for a Shared Prosperity.

Omali Yeshitela has established the African People's Education and Defense Fund, which seeks to address disparities in education and health faced by African Africans, and Burning Spear Productions, the publishing arm of the APSP.

The APSP is affiliated with the African Socialist International, an organization Omali Yeshitela helped establish that seeks to unite African socialists and national liberation movements under a single revolutionary umbrella in opposition to imperialism and neocolonialism.

Omali Yeshitela has set up a coalition promoting "reparations for the centuries of genocide, oppression and the enslavement" of African people.

Omali Yeshitela has argued that African people worldwide are due reparations for more than slavery, but over 500 years of colonialism and neocolonialism.