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Still fighting the power

Omali Yeshitela doesn’t speak in euphemisms. Others might label the October 1996 violence that ripped through troubled black neighborhoods disturbances. To him, the trouble was nothing less than a justifiable rebellion, an uprising.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published October 21, 2006

Omali Yeshitela doesn’t speak in euphemisms. Others might label the October 1996 violence that ripped through troubled black neighborhoods disturbances.

To him, the trouble was nothing less than a justifiable rebellion, an uprising.

Yeshitela, 65, is the founder of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. This is what he had to say 10 years after the disturbances that cost taxpayers $1.2-million for law enforcement and caused $3.17-million in damaged and destroyed property.

Some people say that your group incited the riots. What do you say?

Other people said that we were responsible for forcing the government for the first time to deal with the question of economic development for this community.

Some people lauded us for that. I think they were right. It led to an incredible unity in this community, more than I had ever seen before.

This community, prior to the uprising, was one that 71 percent of the people lived in or near poverty. Africans are afflicted by violence all the time, but the only time it seems that violence is recognized is when Africans respond to the violence, to the violence of poverty, to the violence of homelessness, to the violence of early deaths of our babies, the violence of something like only 30 percent of our children graduating with diplomas.

All this violence, we’re supposed to meekly accept it and turn the other cheek? … Do I condone resistance? I love it. I love it.

Where were you when the disturbances occurred on Oct. 24, 1996?

I wasn’t in the city when it happened. I was in California. I got a phone call telling me that the police had killed a young man and that it had sparked a rebellion, and it was only on the 27th that I was able to get back here.

What did you say to your followers?

I was in constant contact with what was going on and informed about the rebellion, its intensity, its consciousness.

What did you advise your followers to do?

That every effort should be made to support the mobilization of the people. People needed an opportunity to express their dissent, their outrage.

How?

Demonstrations. Forums of different kinds were initiated.

What happened to the black unity you said grew from the shooting of TyRon Lewis?

The local government and various other agencies worked very diligently to split the community.

They employed Darryl Rouson of the NAACP to become a serious critic of the basic unifying principles which were articulated as an end to a public policy of police containment that led to the killing and the demand for economic development that would uplift the entire community.

Has the situation improved for blacks in Midtown?

Ten years hence what has occurred is a land grab in the African community of the worst kind, the most vicious gentrification, where white guys in pickup trucks with clipboards ride through the community and they have been able to grab all kinds of land at the expense of the community.

What about the new Sweetbay Supermarket?

Somebody putting an institution in the middle of an impoverished community that is designed to make it easier for extracting capital wealth from that community has done nothing to help that community. Our struggle all along was to institutionalize the process where the community itself could be uplifted, where the African community could begin to own the resources in this community.

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

About Omali Yeshitela
Born: Oct. 9, 1941
Original name: Joseph Waller. Legally changed in 2000.
Parents: Father was a laborer. Mother, a beautician and nurse.
Marriages: Married fourth wife, Ona Zene Clark, Valentine’s Day, 2006.
1966: Tore down a racially offensive mural that hung in City Hall in 1966.
2001: Ran unsuccessfully for mayor of St. Petersburg.
 

[Last modified October 21, 2006, 19:00:31]