Indictment of African People’s Socialist Party Is a Racist Assault on the Black Liberation Movement

Statement by the Black Alliance for Peace, April 19, 2023

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) unequivocally condemns and opposes the recent indictment of four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), alongside three Russian nationals.

The unsealed indictment states that on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, levied charges of “conspiring to covertly sow discord in U.S. society, spread Russian propaganda and interfere illegally in U.S. elections.” While no evidence of conspiracy, propagandizing, or interference has been presented, the APSP and its members have the right, as all U.S. citizens do, to freely criticize U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

Not since the Palmer Raids of the early 20th century, nor since the indictment of W.E.B DuBois in 1951, or the confiscation of Paul Robeson’s U.S. passport during the anti-communist “McCarthyist” era, has there been such a hysterical response to African people asserting their rights and freedom of speech in the United States. This renewed attack against anti-imperialist Africans, framed within the absurd notion of “Russian influence,” comes as capitalism decays and U.S. global hegemony loses its hold on the world. The attacks on the APSP and the Uhuru Movement are part of a historical tendency to align African political activists with U.S. “adversary” states to marginalize African internationalism (including solidarity with Cuba and Palestine, for example) and to suppress Black radicalism.

It is also an assault on the efforts of Africans organizing against the violence and murders suffered at the hands of the U.S. state. Indeed, Africans do not need Russia to tell them they are suffering the brunt of violence in the heart of the U.S. empire!

BAP demands the indictment be dismissed, and Uhuru must be free!

For further reading on this case, please read BAP’s July 30 statement that commented on the initial FBI raid of the APSP’s properties.

BAP Coordinating Committee

*Featured Image: An activist carries a Pan-African flag during a protest to mark the National Reparations Day July 1, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)