Biography
Omali Yeshitela is a longtime Black liberation organizer and the founding leader of the African People's Socialist Party and the broader Uhuru Movement. Over decades, his organizing has centered on anti-colonial politics, campaigns framed around self-determination and reparations, and building movement institutions alongside electoral and street-level activism, particularly in St. Petersburg and other U.S. cities.
In the 2020s, that organizing became the focus of a major federal case. After high-profile raids by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he and others associated with the organization were indicted and later tried in federal court on allegations tied to acting at the direction of Russia without required notification. A federal jury convicted him in 2024 of a conspiracy count related to acting as a foreign agent, while acquitting on certain other counts; he was later sentenced to probation and community-service conditions rather than prison time. Yeshitela and supporters have publicly characterized the prosecution as politically motivated and an attack on protected speech and movement work.
Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party (later known as Omali Yeshitela). The Black Panther Vol. 18 no.8 (1978) reports that shots were fired at him during a San Francisco speaking engagement, and that days later he was arrested on federal counterfeit-currency charges he called a COINTELPRO frame-up. [Source: The Black Panther (Black Panther Party newspaper), v18 no.8; digitized at marxists.org — https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/index.htm]
Joseph B. Waller was a Mennonite conscientious objector imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refusing military service, he was held at Fort Leavenworth. (Documented in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection's World War I Conscientious Objectors database.)
