Defend and Support the Economic Self-Determination Programs of the African People’s Education & Defense Fund!

Why the FBI attacked the movement for black community health, education and social justice:

At 5:00 am on Friday, July 29th, in a nationally-coordinated action, the FBI and local police simultaneously raided 7 offices and personal homes of Uhuru Movement leaders.

Left: Chairman Omali Yeshitela and APEDF President Ona Zene’ Yeshitela

The attacks included the home of Uhuru Movement founder and leader Chairman Omali Yeshitela and African People’s Education and Defense Fund Board President Ona Zene’ Yeshitela in St. Louis, MO, as well as the homes of several other leading Uhuru Movement members, the St. Petersburg, FL Uhuru House and the Uhuru Solidarity Center in St. Louis.

The FBI was heavily armed with military battering rams, automatic weapons, flash bang grenades, drones and dogs. They smashed through doors at all locations. They handcuffed our leaders and detained them for hours even though no one was arrested or even charged with a crime. 

Nothing was off limits, personal computers, address books, calendars, phones and decades’ worth of files were stolen at gunpoint. They caused thousands of dollars of damage to the buildings. 

This was an attack on the right of African people to organize for self-determination and power over our own lives!

For the past five years the world has watched the African People’s Education & Defense Fund (APEDF), under the tireless leadership of Board President Ona Zene’ Yeshitela, uplift and transform North St. Louis. 

This was a devastated African working class community, deliberately left impoverished and derelict by the city whose purpose was to sell land to developers and push out the black community. 

Since the 2014 murder of Mike Brown, the city claims to have poured millions of dollars into the black community to improve the conditions. Yet the conditions of life remained the same until 2017 when APEDF launched the Black Power Blueprint project. It is putting power back in the hands of our community to solve the issues we’re facing. This shows that through organization we can transform our own communities. APEDF purchased and renovated multiple properties including the Uhuru House community center and rental hall, a community garden and green space, an outdoor event venue, gorgeous murals (bottom), the weekly One Africa Farmers Market and a state of the art basketball court!

Above photo: Community garden, mural above. Bottom left: community event space with stage and weekly farmers market. Bottom right: free, fresh produce at the weekly market.

Other projects include a four-plex to house the African Independence Workforce Program, a training program in the culinary arts for our men and women coming out of the prison system and Uhuru Jiko Bakery Cafe.

 

Despite the FBI raid on the morning of Friday, July 29th, APEDF pushed forward to train 14 African women to become certified doulas to ensure the safe delivery of babies and address the dire disparities of infant and maternal mortality in our community.

The African Doula Project was a kickoff to building our own African Women's Health Center named Uhuru wa Kulea meaning “Freedom to Nurture”.

Left to right: Black Power Vanguards community basketball court and one room of the fully-furnished 4-plex housing unit for the African Independence Workforce Program.

People are outraged at this attack and support is pouring in from around the world. There has been a massive outcry in defense of the African community’s right to organize in our own interest for economic and political self-determination without government interference. People understand that this was more than an attack on the Uhuru Movement. It was an attack on our whole community’s ability to build our own programs to uplift and transform our communities.

Your support is needed now more than ever!

We know that you support Uhuru Furniture because you want to see African community economic development! This is an attack on YOUR institutions and all of our future!