African People's Socialist Party is formed

Despite the atmosphere of fear and intimidation which opened the 1970s, Joseph Waller continued to keep the Movement of the African working class alive in St. Petersburg, Florida. Even as African petty bourgeois forces were stepping in to replace the defeated African working and neo-colonialism was on the rise, Waller formed the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) in 1972.

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(Above) Chairman Omali Yeshitela organizing in the '70s.

The APSP which has never compromised its commitment to the interests of the African working class is the only African organization alive today which was able to survive the U.S. governments counterinsurgent attack against our movement of the 60s. This has been vitally important, giving our movement continuity and the depth of experience over the years.

During the 1970s the main goal of the newly-formed Party was to keep the Black Revolution alive, to defend the countless Africans who had been imprisoned by the counterinsurgency and to develop the relationship with Africa and African people dispersed around the world. During this period the Chairman took the name Omali Yeshitela which means "umbrella to protect 1000 people." He spent the greater part of the decade traveling around organizing from city to city carrying a red suitcase full of books.

Led by Chairman Omali, the Party took on some magnificent campaigns during the 1970s. The successful campaign to free Pitts and Lee was significant because it forced the governor of the state of Florida to release two African men on death row who had been framed for something they did not do.

Through the successful campaign to free Dessie Woods the Party built an international organization which won world-wide support for this African working class woman who was forced to defend herself against colonial violence by killing with his own gun the white man who tried to rape her.

This campaign was also politically significant for reclaiming the struggle from white leftist and feminist forces who had risen up after the defeat of the Black Power Movement and who opportunistically tried to redefine Dessie's courageous act as the right of all women to defend themselves against rape. The campaign to free Dessie Woods proved to be very important in rebuilding the Black Movement after the U.S. government's attack, and she was freed in 1981.

During the 70s the Chairman began to formulate his developing theory from the point of view of the African working class. During this period, the Party published several of the Chairman's theoretical pamphlets including the well-known "Colonialism: the Main Contradiction Facing Africans in the U.S." and "Tactics and Strategy for Black Liberation" which was meant to be guideline for all African forces struggling against imperialism.

In 1976 the Party formed the African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC), which proved to be one of the its most significant moves. For the first time in history, a Revolutionary African organization was able to win white people away from their historic unity with white power and colonialism by giving them the opportunity to be organized under the leadership of the African working class.

The existence of APSC enabled the Party and the Black Revolution to win back some of our stolen resources and to build a genuinely revolutionary force within the white population which could provide solidarity with the Black Revolution in the U.S. and around the world and help to isolate and encircle the U.S. government.