The Uhurus: the African-American socialist movement accused of working for Russia

Last week a federal grand jury in Tampa decided to indict several members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which created the Uhuru Movement. Four party members allegedly collaborated with Russian intelligence agents to influence national elections and spread pro-Russian propaganda in the United States. The recent indictment follows the FBI investigation, which in the summer of 2022, searched the APSP headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said at the press conference accompanying the indictment. According to the indictment, Russia allegedly funded several U.S. civilian organizations to carry out these tasks of disinformation and influence on the social climate.

As part of this campaign, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, president of a Russian anti-globalist association, was reportedly the liaison between Russian intelligence and the APSP. Among those charged are Omali Yeshitela, president and founder of the APSP, as well as three other members of the party. According to the Department of Justice, this connection has been maintained regularly since 2015, after the invasion of Crimea and the outbreak of the war in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

The indictment details how Russian secret services allegedly obtained Omali Yeshitela’s public support for backing Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Donetsk region. According to the indictment, it would be “the first time that ‘American nonprofit organizations congratulated citizens’ of the occupied region.”

From 2015, Ionov invited and hosted Yeshitela several times in Russia. According to the indictment, all travel costs were always paid by Ionov. With these trips and the strengthening of relations, the Uhuru Movement’s messages in favor of Russia also increased. The support of the APSP chairmanship persisted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since the FBI searched the Florida headquarters of the APSP, the political movement has denied allegations of working with Russia. The Uhuru movement considers itself a victim of political persecution for opposing the war.

A pan-Africanist and anti-capitalist movement

The African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) was founded in 1972 by Omali Yeshitela. The organization currently promotes an Afrocentrist and socialist narrative in the United States. One of its most repeated demands is reparations for enslaved Black people’s descendants in America. It is not a fantastical idea. Just recently, in California, the government of the city of San Francisco proposed $5 million in compensation for each person who could prove to be a descendant of enslaved people in reparation for decades of racial discrimination. In addition to its website, the APSP also relies on several media outlets to disseminate its ideas.