ST. PETERSBURG - On June 6, the African People's Socialist Partywill publicly unveil the Uhuru Community Development Program. Thisprogram is a call to the African community of St. Petersburg totransform the miserable reality we are faced with into something thatis good for us, something that we deserve.
The Uhuru Community Development Program will not only change theconditions inside our community, it will bring back the dignity whichhas been taken from our people. Our dignity has been taken throughyears of white domination and demoralizing forced dependency on ourvery oppressors. We have borne the brunt of psychological warfarewhich slanders and criminalizes our people in such a vicious way thatwe often have more faith in the ability of white people to controlour affairs and govern us than we have in ourselves.
The Uhuru Community Development Program is a program which will bebuilt with our very own hands and which we will control. It will notrely on the funds which bankroll the scores of poverty programs thatsucceed in nothing but giving a handful of Negroes jobs. It will relyon the participation, ingenuity, genius and creativity of ourcommunity. Therefore it will be unmatched by anything everattempted.
One exception to our unwillingness to accept government grantsmight be our food cooperative. We would only accept these grants ifthe cooperative could still be a no-strings-attached community-ownedinstitution.
The Uhuru Community Development Program will be comprised of fourbasic components:
These four programs will address the most urgent and basic needsof our community.
The Uhuru Health Food Cooperative and Store will establish acommunity owned and operated business. This business will not beowned by any individual and it will not make profits for anyone. Thecollective is open to members of the community and the store will befunded through membership dues and profits made from sales at thestore. These profits will be put back into the collective to fund theexpansion of the store.
This Cooperative will begin to bring economic development andcommerce to the African community while at the same time providingquality nutrition at reasonable prices. It will make a variety ofhealth products accessible to the African community. It will alsobegin the process of allowing our community to control the food weeat.
The importance of the cooperative lies not only in the fact thatmost of the businesses in our community are owned by parasitic white,Arab, Korean and other foreign merchants who take advantage of thepoverty of our community to bleed it dry. As a collectively-ownedbusiness, the cooperative is also significant because it will allowhundreds of African workers to become collective business owners anddecision-makers.
The Independent Black Community School will bring the education ofAfrican children back into our hands. This is important especially inSt. Petersburg where African children are forced into an integratedschool system which prohibits Africans from being the majoritypopulation at any school. Dominated by virtually all white teachersand staff, the majority of African students are forcibly bused tofaraway white communities which are hostile to Africans andinaccessible to African parents who have to travel long distances toschools if an emergency happens.
Under these circumstances, African students are being pushed outof the schools at alarming numbers through unjust suspensions,expulsions and failings. Every day they are forced to walk intovirtual battle grounds on school campuses where they not only have tocontend with racist teachers and staff and arrogant white childrenbut also the same police forces which brutalize and harass Africanpeople on the streets.
The independent black community school which the Uhuru Movement isbuilding will include the TyRon Lewis Childcare Collective, whichwill organize African women and our community to meet the urgent needfor free, quality childcare. It will also include the Fred HamptonSaturday School offering tutoring, remedial education, specializedlearning and training in arts and culture. Also, the Malcolm XSpecial School will serve African students tracked for behavioralprograms and will provide an education designed to stimulate highlyinquisitive, energetic children.
The Uhuru Health Initiative is another component of the UhuruCommunity Development Program. Its urgency is extreme. The health ofAfrican people is in an emergency state. We are suffering and dyingof curable diseases, and we are increasingly being stripped of whatlittle health care was available through social programs which arebeing eliminated.
The Uhuru Health Initiative is a program that will address thiscrisis by mobilizing the masses of African people to take control ofour health care and build an Uhuru Health Ministry.
Leading this effort will be Dr. Carol Ann Cobb, an African doctorgenuinely dedicated to providing health care services to our poor andoppressed community. What's most important about the health ministrywhich Sister Cobb will be leading is that it will rely on massparticipation and education to solve the community's basic healthproblems.
Its emphasis will be on preventive health care - educating thecommunity about how to live and eat in a healthy way, and persuadingAfrican people to get rid of unhealthy habits like drinking, smokingand drugs. These habits are developed in an attempt to deal with thestresses of being an oppressed people under white domination.
The Health Ministry will also provide basic health care trainingto members of the African community and provide a variety of healthcare services. It will make doctors - a scarce item in our community- accessible. It will eventually establish a free health clinic.
Another important aspect of the Uhuru Health Ministry is that itwill utilize a variety of approaches in addition to Western (white,European or what is considered conventional) medicine. TraditionalAfrican medicine is nothing foreign to our community. In manyinstances, it has only been forgotten. The Uhuru Health Initiativewill introduce many aspects of it to our community - thereby bringingback the self-reliance and control which we once exercised over ourhealth care at a time when we were much healthier and happier.
The other major component of the Uhuru Community DevelopmentProgram is the Public Safety component. This aspect of the programwill make our community safe - both from police violence and theso-called black-on-black violence which exists in our community.
The main instrument of the Uhuru Public Safety program will be asecurity force made up of community members who patrol the streetswith video cameras monitoring police activity and distributinginformation to the people about our rights when confronted by thepolice. This type of activity will begin to push back police violenceand win the streets back from notorious police thugs who are able toviolate our people because we have lacked an organized response.
At the same time, the Uhuru Security Force will begin tode-escalate and eliminate the violent confrontations which eruptbetween our people. The white rulers use this violence as an excuseto unleash police aggression against our people and strip thecommunity of its basic democratic rights. The Uhuru Security Forcewill demonstrate how political education, persuasion and conflictresolution aimed at unifying and mobilizing our people in thestruggle for freedom is the only means of stopping the violentmadness which afflicts our oppressed people and serves ourenemies.
Finally, the Uhuru Security Force will create a new definition ofwomanhood and manhood through the example of discipline, courage andself-sacrifice its members will set.
To save our lives and future from the death grip of ouroppressors, African people must have political independence andself-rule. But white power is killing and destroying our people atthis very moment - this killing and destruction is aimed precisely atkeeping our movement for liberation beaten down. So, we must begin toseize as much control over our lives and our communities as possibleright now.
This is what the Uhuru Community Development Program is. It is acall to all African people - to workers (skilled and unskilled),students, young and old people - to take control of our future andbegin reshaping our people and our community into a self-sufficientand self-governing entity.
We alone can build and shape a happy and prosperous future for ourpeople. Everyone is needed. Everyone has something to offer. Only bypulling together our collective skill, creativity and genius can wesucceed.