Block organizing key
Currently, the crucial work is block organizing. We've got a map of the city and we're dividing the city up into sections. We've created 30 sections now, but they're larger than I want them to be. For every section we want to have a section leader right out of that community. For this we're trying to win people who are Uhuru supporters. We want to commit them to just doing Uhuru work in the neighborhood where they stay. The solidarity forces are currently dividing up the white community into sections as well.
In every section we want to have a section leader, and in every block we want to put a block captain. We will organize the entire city in that fashion so that no matter where the government attempts to go, no matter what kind of thing they want to do down the road, we will have put down Uhuru houses throughout the city. Every house becomes an Uhuru house. That way, we'll be able to maintain the high ground that we have now.
This has been a difficult thing for us to deal with. For the last 30 years or more we have been accustomed to a movement where our basic work has been criticism of the system. This is the first time we've ever been in place to actually make and implement policy! It is not the solution overall, but we have an opportunity here to actually change the conditions of existence for the masses of people and put the struggle on a higher level. It means the next struggle from this step goes for even higher goals.
During this recent process we have said things that have confused some people. We have, for example, defined the situation in St. Petersburg as a win/win situation for everybody. We've told the capitalists who want to get something like the baseball team, "You can have what you want, but the thing is, we've got to get what we want. We have to have economic development."
Some people have asked, "What do you mean the capitalists can have what they want?" Well, revolution isn't happening right now. They're going to get it any damn way. The problem is not that the capitalists are going to get what they want, the problem is that we have to win everybody to understand that we've got to get what we want.
What happens is this: you raise the relative position of the masses of African workers in relationship to the position of the capitalists. I don't care what anybody says, the people cannot get strong except at the expense of the bourgeoisie. I don't care what the capitalists think. The thing is to win everybody to agree that the masses have to be raised up. That's the thing. Win maximum opinion about that.
The capitalists are dragging their feet. I'm criticizing the banks and others. I'm criticizing the owning classes because they're not doing what they're supposed to do, and it's part of the deal. Win masses of people to agree that the people are supposed to have that and they'll be looking funny at the banks and owning classes for not holding up their part. That's the kind of thing that we've been able to do.
The other thing that is so crucial is that today nobody is trying to demonize the black community in St. Petersburg any more! You might hear some whacko on talk radio, but generally speaking that does not happen. Generally speaking, they can't dismiss the African working class as ignorant, inarticulate and pathological. In fact, it is quite articulate. The reality is that when the Uhuru Movement opens its mouth, it is the masses of poor people who are speaking. That is the concession that we've won that I think is crucial to the development of our movement here and throughout the country.
City goes Uhuru
This has been a powerful struggle. The St. Petersburg Times ran an article: "Uhuru leader met with the mayor. Uhuru leader met with the head of the Police Benevolent Association, Uhuru leader has articles in The St. Petersburg Times, Uhuru leader goes mainstream."
But I said, wait a minute. I never said I wouldn't meet with the mayor-the mayor said he wouldn't meet with me. It wasn't us chasing the police and shooting tear gas at them-it was them shooting tear gas at us. In reality, the CEO of The St. Petersburg Times on November 20th of last year, posted a memo on every board in every department that characterized Omali Yeshitela and this man Curtsinger who was a thuggish, Ku Klux Klan type police chief, as the same.
So if the mayor calls and has a meeting with me, if the police chief meets with me, and I have an article in The St. Petersburg Times, it seems to me the logic is not that I have gone mainstream, but that they have gone Uhuru!
It is so important that African workers cannot be trashed in the same way they used be. They have to say that economic development is the solution, that the people have the right to economic development. White folks are sending me letters saying, they agree with me. White folks are telling the solidarity movement that Omali Yeshitela is the best black leader we've ever seen, and this kind of thing.
Right now we control the high ground. There's a lot that we still have to learn. We're just beginning to understand how funding happens. We've never been that concerned about these issues, but the city of St. Petersburg gets $15 million from HUD every year in the form of community development block grants.
We don't know anything about a community development block grant, never cared anything about that kind of thing. But now we're in the situation where we can decide what's going to happen with it, or have a lot to do with those kind of decisions. We can move it in directions that enhance our stature with the people and actually contribute to changing the conditions for the masses of African people. So that's where we are in St. Pete.
