Biography
Omali Yeshitela is a longtime Black liberation organizer and the founding leader of the African People's Socialist Party and the broader Uhuru Movement. Over decades, his organizing has centered on anti-colonial politics, campaigns framed around self-determination and reparations, and building movement institutions alongside electoral and street-level activism, particularly in St. Petersburg and other U.S. cities.
In the 2020s, that organizing became the focus of a major federal case. After high-profile raids by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he and others associated with the organization were indicted and later tried in federal court on allegations tied to acting at the direction of Russia without required notification. A federal jury convicted him in 2024 of a conspiracy count related to acting as a foreign agent, while acquitting on certain other counts; he was later sentenced to probation and community-service conditions rather than prison time. Yeshitela and supporters have publicly characterized the prosecution as politically motivated and an attack on protected speech and movement work.
Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party (later known as Omali Yeshitela). The Black Panther Vol. 18 no.8 (1978) reports that shots were fired at him during a San Francisco speaking engagement, and that days later he was arrested on federal counterfeit-currency charges he called a COINTELPRO frame-up.
In 1966, while known as Joe Waller, Omali Yeshitela helped remove a mural from St. Petersburg City Hall in protest against its racist depiction of Black people. In a June 15, 2020 address, he explicitly recalled going to prison for that action. The municipal prosecution for destruction of city property and disorderly breach of the peace produced a 180-day sentence, followed by a state grand-larceny conviction and a six-month-to-five-year sentence with 170 days credited. On April 6, 1970 the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the state conviction because the second prosecution violated double-jeopardy protections. The judgment is not evidence of his actual release date; the precise admission and discharge endpoints remain unverified. This historical episode is separate from the much later federal prosecution.
A March 2, 1978 APSP press statement reprinted in Breakthrough reports Joseph Waller (Omali Yeshitela) and Aziza Ayoluwa arrested during his Bay Area speaking tour on an allegation involving a counterfeit five-dollar bill. The paper says charges were dropped before arraignment, and attributes the arrests to political repression; that characterization remains the organization’s allegation. The speech printsFebruary 21 while describing nine days afterFebruary 18, an internal date inconsistency, so only February 1978 is recorded here. Dismissal is not assigned as a physical-release date.
