U.S. Imposes Economic Sanctions on Black Community Projects

Originally published by The Burning Spear, an African People's Socialist Party publication

March 19, 2023 / 6323 AFK

In March 2023, Regions Bank notified the black nonprofit African People’s Education and Defense Fund (APEDF) that the bank was “exiting” their 20-year relationship, closing accounts, withdrawing lines of credit and canceling mortgage loans.

This assault on the ability of African people to build economic self-reliance was the latest in a series of actions revealing government and corporate cooperation targeting the black community programs of the Uhuru (Freedom) Movement including its popular Women’s Health Center, Black Power Vanguard Basketball Court, “One Africa! One Nation!” Marketplaces, Gary Brooks Community Garden, Uhuru Jiko Commercial Kitchens and Bakery Cafe, Akwaaba Hall events venues, Black Power 96 radio station, Uhuru Furniture & Collectibles stores, Uhuru Foods & Pies and Uhuru House black community centers.

Facebook has blocked the ability for supporters to crowdfund for Uhuru programs through their personal pages. GoFundMe froze over $9,000 in donations for the Hands Off Uhuru! Legal Defense Fund for more than three months until the group’s lawyers took legal action to get the funds released. The Stripe payment processing company also blocked contributions to the group for a period of time.

On February 14, 2023 the Pinellas County Commission revoked $36,801 in funding that had been previously approved for WBPU 96.3 FM black community radio station in St. Petersburg, Florida after expressing political opposition to its association with the black power Uhuru Movement.

These economic sanctions have come on the heels of a series of violent government-initiated attacks on the Uhuru Movement that began in earnest with the July 29, 2022 militarized FBI raid on seven Uhuru properties and includes two acts of arson, one arrest and interrogation, censorship in the removal of a change.org petition and a U.S. state department announcement of a $10 million reward for information that could tie Uhuru leaders to Russian government interference in U.S. elections and public opinion influencing.

Ona Zené Yeshitela, Board President of APEDF, says “Our organization has built over 50 economic institutions, financed through our own fundraising work and the donations of thousands of people. These banks don’t want black people to be able to feed, clothe and house ourselves. They do not want money circulating in the black community.”

Omali Yeshitela is founder of the Uhuru Movement and Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party. He is considered the primary target of the FBI raids and threatened indictments on charges of serving as a pawn of the Russian government. A 1960s field organizer registering voters with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the 81-year-old Yeshitela has fought for Black Power for over 50 years.

He charges that, “These banks are collaborating with the government to deny black people the right to have free healthcare, to have economic development in our communities, for our children to have safe basketball courts. They want us on welfare. But we’ve got a right to have our own power.

“These banks are imposing economic sanctions on our Movement because we are engaged in unifying the African Nation that represents an existential threat to the continuation of the colonial mode of production on which they are built and maintained.”

Yeshitela likens the economic aggression against Uhuru Movement institutions to those the U.S. government and society made against Marcus Garvey and his UNIA, the bombing of Tulsa’s “black wall street” and the destruction of the Black Panther Party black community survival programs.

He accuses the American government of imposing economic sanctions against the black-led Uhuru Movement as they do against countries who do not bow to U.S. world domination, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, China and Russia.

The actions of Regions Bank and other financial institutions come after widespread public exposure of the role of the slave trade in the birth of the American banking and insurance industries and during a time of growing demands for reparations to black people for slavery and colonialism.

A campaign has been launched to defend the Uhuru Movement, it’s leaders and institutions, chronicled at HandsOffUhuru.org. Supporters are raising funds for legal defense, mobilizing for protest demonstration at U.S. federal buildings, organizing call-ins to government officials and demanding “Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” 

Demands

1. Stop Regions Bank’s racist sanctions against the Black community!

2. Stop Regions Bank’s racist attacks on APEDF’s community programs!

3. Regions Bank must re-instate accounts with APEDF!

Take Action

• Boycott Regions Bank! Bank-Run on Regions! Close your accounts.

• Call-in to the Region headquarters branch 205-326-5151 and state the demands during open hours. Go to your local Regions bank and state demands for CEO John Turner: Stop Regions’ racist sanctions on APEDF! Support Black economic development!

• Demonstrate at a Regions bank branch in your city and hand out this flier!

• Join and assist in legal action against Regions at HandsOffUhuru.org/volunteer

• Donate to the Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa! campaign. HandsOffUhuru.org/donate

Addendum:

Excerpted from an August 2022 article by by Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute, a conservative, libertarian think tank

Assuming the allegations asserted in the indictment by DoJ with respect to Ionov are valid, the case against him seems fairly straightforward. But the APSP and the Uhuru House and its related political movement can only be described as fringe, bit players on the American political scene whose previous statements and stances already mirrored the Kremlin’s line decades before Aleksandr Ionov came along. It makes one wonder why the FBI targeted such marginal groups with little to no impact on the broader political process, and whether an unstated goal of the raids was to put the entire domestic political advocacy community on notice that a domestic group with foreign connections is considered fair game for FBI scrutiny even if legitimate First Amendment activity is involved.