(ThyBlackMan.com) Recently, I decided to interview a previous former member of The Uhuru Movement to know what the movement really is behind the scenes.
To get a better inside detail into the movement, I decided to interview another former member, a non-black person (who will not be identified) who was a member of The Uhuru Solidarity Movement that witnessed the exact same things that the previous former member (a black person) I interviewed had witnessed.
Here’s my interview with the non-black former member of the movement:
Me: What type of corruption did you witness in the organization?
Former Member: “I can’t speak to that. I do have experience with their authoritarianism that they use to kick out members and to get other members to hate them for whatever reason they made up. In my case, they posted on their website that I was assumed to be 
“working with the cops” to take down uhuru. Which was a complete lie and fabrication that they ran with to make me look bad. They even posted my one mugshot and used that old dropped charge to humiliate me.”
Me: Did you witness people getting slandered for leaving the organization?
Former Member: “I didn’t witness many others having it happen to them, but it definitely happened to me. I think I’ve spoken to a couple people who say something similar happened to them, but not on the same level of what they did to me.”
Me: Did you witness any misogyny in the organization?
Former Member: No
Me: Did you witness any croniysm in the organization?
Former Member: “The group claims to be socialist, but in reality they are black capitalists. The group raises money for some necessary causes, but all they do they do it to get their name out there even more.”
Me: For The “3DBG Campaign”, I noticed they did fundraisers, webinars, and public speaking gigs, does that money go towards it’s original purpose or does it go into the pockets of a select few?
Former Member: “I have no idea. I’m assuming the money goes towards it’s advertised purpose, but I don’t even know what that is in the case of the 3DBG campaign. AK is in charge of that, and she is very self-serving so who knows.”
Me: They claim that the “institutions” they bult “give back to the community”, is this true? If not explain.
Former Member: “They do have programs to help the poor black people in the community, however, those services are minimal. Instead, they tend to focus on creating things with their name on them like the Uhuru furniture store. Right now their main priority has been building the second Uhuru house in St. Louis.”
Me: Describe how were you treated by The UM and USM.
Former Member: “I was treated well until I dared to stand proudly in opposition to the party line on friendship. After that I was cut and they called me a white supremacist- despite being called a “great ally” to a uhuru and the black community not even a week earlier.”
Me: What are AK & GZ’s real personality in private?
Former Member: “They’re both the same. They’re nice when you’re a member doing whatever they say. When you actually stick to a principle they don’t agree with, though, they’ll tear you apart.
Me: I noticed that AK got a new home and a new car, were they bought with money exploited from the people of the city?
Former Member: “I have not seen this because I am blocked from all of their pages. If AK has a new car it was paid for by Uhuru. Because Uhuru is her full time job. I don’t see much of an issue with that though. Good for her.”
Me: Did you witness any violence in the organization?
Former Member: “No”
Me: Does The UM actually go into the communities that they claim to care & fight for?
Former Member: “Yes. I’m assuming you don’t know that much about Uhuru. They are centrally located in the black community of south st Pete. All their services and programs are on the south side.”
Me: During the so-called People’s Movement” campaign last year, did the money go towards the campaign or in the pockets of the select few?
Former Member: “Of course the campaign money went towards the campaign. How else would they have been able to pay for the necessities of a campaign? The remaining money went into JS & AK’s new CURED organization. That is the group that succeeded the JS/AK’s campaign in order to work towards setting the ground work and ground game necessary to win city elections in the future.
Former Member: “There are real reasons that Uhuru deserves criticism for. The AK/JS campaign is not one of them. They are not violent. They don’t just steal all the money. They aren’t sexist. They’re just capitalist and they should be socialist. They’re also black separatists who want “African-Americans” to have their own state. I agree with most of what they say until it comes to that point. I do not agree that blacks and whites cannot be friends. I also do not agree when they make their priorities capitalist institutions instead of revolution.
Me: What’s UM’s relationship with the black community in St. Pete like?
Former Member: “They have meetings every Sunday. They’re essentially the black leftist alternative to church. They have a few small devices like uhuru pies, and the Tyrone gym that they use to both help serve the community- trying to position themselves as an alternative to relying on the “white colonialist US government”. So there are many in the community that support them. But most of their actual money comes from the white people in the solidarity committee- for they are the ones called on the pay reparations at every one of their meetings. Uhuru does solicit to black members as well, but for different reasons.”
Me: So, explain what you mean by Uhurus soliciting to black members for different reasons?
Former Member: “Everyone pays membership fees. But only white members are demanded to pay reparations at every event. Black members are encouraged to donate, but only on the grounds of helping the party. Reparations are requested from white members as a way to determine ether or not that white person can be apart of the uhuru movement.”
Me: I see, so The UM much like like BLM, NAACP, CBC, and these other pseudo-“black” organizations out here basically get most of their funding from white people and I greatly despise that.
Me: Do you think that UM paid for AK’s new car and house? Because she couldn’t save all that money from her old job to buy those things?
Former Member: “Of course instead of advocating or lobbying for reparations in Tallahassee or DC- they advocate for reparations from working class and student white people and all of those reparations go directly to The Uhuru Movement for use however they deem fit. She is paid by uhuru because she is one of their most well known voices at this point. It’s her full time job. So yes, whether it was directly bought by uhuru or paid for using her uhuru salary- that’s the only question.”
The Conclusion – In the end, The Uhuru Movement always preaches to the choir claiming that they’re against capitalism, but in reality, they’re literally doing the exact same thing that they claim to be against by actually perpetuating capitalism within their own organization by actually exploiting our community for their opportunistic greed and self-serving gain. This corrupt organization doesn’t really represent the interests of the black working class, they are a long standing member of the black bourgeoisie that are actually pseudo-revolutionaries who harass, slander, bully, and exploit people for their own selfish, greedy interests, period.
Staff Writer; Kwame Shakir (aka Joe D.)
