Federal agents executed a search warrant on Friday at the St. Petersburg headquarters of the Uhuru Movement, a 50-year-old African socialist organization, as part of an investigation into Russian interference in the US election.
According to police and federal agents, the Uhurus were targeted for possible political cooperation by Russian Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, accused of spreading disinformation and discord to alter the American political landscape.
Related: The FBI is investigating Russian interference possibly related to St. Petersburg’s Uhuru movement
The uhurus have not been identified as an object of investigation. But who are they? Here’s the group’s backstory.
What is the Uhuru Movement?
The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement is an activist arm of the African People’s Socialist Society, a group founded in 1972 “to lead the struggle of the African working class and oppressed masses against American capitalist-colonialist rule,” according to the group website.
The society traces its roots to 1966, when a 25-year-old man named Joe Waller entered St. Petersburg City Hall and tore down a mural depicting caricatures of black minstrels playing banjos for beachgoers. Waller served 2 1/2 years in prison, but at the same time founded the movement’s official newspaper, The Burning Spear, and organized global black activist groups from prison. He later became president of the African People’s Socialist Society and changed his name to Omali Yeshitela.
In 1991, Yeshitela decided that the organization needed an arm dedicated to “defeating the vicious counterinsurgency against the African community and defending the democratic rights of African peoples.” This group adopted the name Uhuru, the Swahili word for freedom.
Uhuru President Omali Yeshitela, center, speaks as he stands with about 20 Uhuru supporters and colleagues on the steps of City Hall on June 15, 2020 in St. Petersburg. [ DIRK SHADD | Times ]
How many members are there?
The group has traditionally not said so. Over the years, some protests have drawn dozens.
“We are a small organization. That’s all I’ll say,” Yeshitela said in 1996. “We don’t talk about numbers.”
what do they want
The group’s official platform of 14 points seeks reparations for the past wrongs of the United States and Europeans against enslaved Africans. Among them: payments and the end of taxes to black people; the right to “political and economic association” with Africans “anywhere on the face of the earth”; the right to unify African nations under a single socialist government; and the immediate release of all black prisoners, political or otherwise; and the right to form a People’s Army of African Liberation.
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They are global goals. Locally, the group has historically pressured public officials to right wrongs against black residents, from building Tropicana Field in a predominantly black district to advocating for the secession of the historic Black Jordan Park neighborhood from the city of St. Petersburg.
The city “has cut a freeway through our community, destroying stable neighborhoods and transforming its African inhabitants into urban nomads,” Yeshitela wrote in 1997. “It is the intention of the Uhuru Movement to break this vicious cycle. Although the our primary interest is to lift the conditions of existence of the African community and end the various political assaults by a number of (anti-black) forces, we are convinced that this effort is in the best interest of the entire city of St. Petersburg.”
How visible are they in St. Petersburg?
Over the years, quite visible. In the mid-2000s, members of Uhuru and anti-Iraq war activists targeted St. Petersburg’s BayWalk shopping and dining complex for a series of protests so vocal and visible that they were often cited as the reasons due to which the complex lost business and failed. Eventually, BayWalk was remodeled and rebranded as Sundial.
The Uhurus played a major role in the city riots that followed the 1996 police killing of 18-year-old TyRon Lewis. The group led vigils and marches and called for the release of arrested protesters and retribution against the white officer who shot Lewis during a traffic stop. When a grand jury cleared the officer, a standoff with police broke out at the Uhuru home, with three members arrested and charged with a string of crimes.
In the years after Lewis’ death, the Uhurus waged a virtual war against the city and law enforcement, even sentencing the mayor and police chief to death during an internal court case. They lobbied for a publicly funded gym to be named the TyRon Lewis Community Gym of all people. And in 2016, without the city’s permission, the group erected a sign at the site of Lewis’ death and renamed 18th Avenue S “TyRon Lewis Avenue.”
The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement renamed 18th Avenue S TyRon Lewis Avenue for the 20th anniversary of his death in 2016. [ JOHN PENDYGRAFT | Tampa Bay Times ]
There is one more thing that the Uhurus in St. Petersburg are known for: their cakes. The fundraising arm of the group bakes and sells sweet potato, pumpkin, apple crumble and other pies at the city’s Saturday morning market, and takes countless special orders before the holidays.
Are they active in St. Petersburg city politics?
Yes. Almost every electoral cycle, the uhurus have presented or supported candidates for the mayor’s office and the City Council, most of them open. In 2017, the group disrupted a mayoral debate, sparking a fight that led to a shoving match broken up by police. A week later, the race made national news when a candidate told supporters of the Uhurus’ preferred candidate, Jesse Nevel, the white president of the Uhuru National Solidarity Movement, to “go back to Africa” during a debate .
Were they active during the 2020 George Floyd protests?
Only a few of the organizers who emerged to lead citywide protests after Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota had an avowed connection to the Uhuru movement. Yeshitela led a protest demanding that Bank of America pay more than $1 billion in reparations for “developing economic power in the African community.” In another protest, Uhuru member Eritha Cainion, a former city council candidate, took a microphone on the steps of City Hall.
“Raise your fist, strike back!” he shouted, leading the crowd in a call and response. “Learn the killer cops now!”
Times staff writers Jack Evans and Zachary T. Sampson contributed to this report, which used information from Times archives.
