‘Attack on First Amendment Rights of Blacks Is an Attack on Everyone’

On July 29, 2022, the FBI carried out simultaneous, pre-dawn, violent, military-style raids on seven homes and the offices of the Uhuru Freedom Movement and the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) in St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Petersburg, Florida. This included the St. Louis home of APSP president Omali Yeshitela and the group’s radio station, Black Power 96.3 FM. 

The alleged justification for the raids was that the APSP was spreading “Russian propaganda” and interfering in U.S. elections by broadcasting its opinion about the war in Ukraine. The raids and subsequent trial of three of the leaders of the Uhuru movement were a clear assault on the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution.

“The Uhuru Movement has over 50 years of work advocating for the liberation and unification of Africa and forcibly dispersed African people everywhere,” explains the Hands Off Uhuru website. The pan-Africanist group has been a longtime advocate for reparations for slavery and a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy.

“[The government sees] in the African People’s Socialist Party a vanguard for the struggle for the liberation of our people,” said Yeshitela following the 2022 raids. “They see that because of not just what we do here in the United States but because we have the temerity to do like Garvey, to do like Malcolm X,^[1] and take the struggle of black people around the world.”

In December 2024, Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel — the Uhuru 3, as they are known — were acquitted of charges that they had acted as agents of a foreign power, in this case Russia, and interfered in elections. However, the jury found them guilty of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign power.

Twisting political opinion and protest activities into an alleged conspiracy is the same method the federal government is using against those speaking out against genocide in Palestine and raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in order to quell dissent. And it is the same argument that Washington has most recently outlined in a July 27, 2026, state department document, Cuba: The Capital of 21^st Century Communism, targeting those who oppose the U.S. blockade of the island nation.

World-Outlook is publishing for the information of our readers a first-hand account of the recent court hearings in the case of the Uhuru 3. The article first appeared in Spanish on the website of Trabajadores, the newspaper of the Federation of Cuban Workers (CTC — its Spanish acronym). The English text, headlines, and subheadings that follow are by author Mark Friedman. Photos and notes are by World-Outlook.

— World-Outlook editors

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Landmark First Amendment Case Concerning the ‘Uhuru 3’ in Federal Court

July 27, 2026

By Mark Friedman

ATLANTA, Georgia — On July 22, 2026, three federal judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the appeal on constitutional grounds of the 2024 conviction for conspiracy imposed on the “Uhuru 3,” members or supporters of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), an international organization. More than 80 supporters of the Uhuru 3 packed the court.

The case began when SWAT teams and the FBI raided the home of APSP president Omali Yeshitela and his partner in 2022; they ransacked the place and seized computers and thousands of pages of documents about the organization’s history and activities.

In 2024, a Tampa jury acquitted Yeshitela and two white supporters — Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel — of the charge of acting as agents of Russia; however, it convicted them on a contradictory secondary and trumped-up charge of conspiracy for “failing to register as agents of a foreign nation” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

However, the political reason for the accusation lay in the fact that they had expressed opinions against U.S. support for Ukraine and criticisms of the treatment the U.S. has given to the black population for decades.

During the 2024 trial, the Uhuru 3 legal team convinced the jury that the opinions expressed by Yeshitela were his own and not dictated by the Russian government, presenting printed and video evidence of Yeshitela’s activism over decades.

The Justice Department had argued that the Uhuru 3 were engaged in spreading disinformation, “even if the information is true, but makes the government look bad.” It also alleged that Yeshitela had traveled to Russia twice to attend conferences and had accepted a $5,000 donation, distributed over several years, from a Russian NGO [non-governmental organization].

The appeal against the Uhuru 3’s conviction on the lesser charge of conspiracy was filed on June 16, 2025. It argued that the lower court’s ruling, which held that legitimate political speech loses First Amendment protection when it is alleged that the speaker is a Russian agent, should be overturned.

This campaign of resistance in defense of free speech garnered national and international support from First Amendment advocates and social justice activists across the political spectrum, including the National Lawyers Guild, the Civil Liberties Defense Center, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Center for Political Innovation, the U.S. Peace Council, Dr. Cornel West, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Dr. Gerald Horne, and even Tucker Carlson. Letters of support were sent to the judge from people in 56 countries and 48 states. The defendants were sentenced to three years probation, 300 hours of community service, and travel restrictions.

In their motion to dismiss, the lawyers for the Uhuru 3 argued: “The government is using a federal criminal law here to prosecute members of an activist group for their political speech and activism in opposition to U.S. foreign policy. In doing so, this prosecution attacks the very core of the First Amendment.”

“This is the first case in which the government has used the law that penalizes unregistered foreign agents (18 USC §951) to target political or dissenting speech. In short, if convicted, it will overturn more than eight decades of Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the government from targeting dissenting political speech and dissent,” stated lead attorney Leonard Goodman.

A process that is not “content-neutral”

The oral arguments hearing lasted less than 30 minutes. Attorney Goodman began by saying, “This is an unprecedented case. It is the first time Section 951 has been used to directly target speech. The indictment does not allege that any of these defendants conspired to commit espionage or destroy property. Rather, the indictment charges a conspiracy to disseminate pro-Russian political speech, described in the indictment as ‘Russian propaganda and disinformation’.”

Chief judge William Pryor intervened: “This indictment appears to necessarily involve speech, but the real question is: Is the offense — that is, the failure to register while acting as an agent of a foreign government — content-neutral? It seems to me that it is. Your speech activities on behalf of that foreign state may serve as evidence that you are an unregistered agent.”

Speaking to reporters as members of the Uhuru 3 and their supporters left the Atlanta federal courthouse, Yeshitela stated: “The prosecution had no reasonable explanation as to why we were facing conspiracy charges when the jury had acquitted us of the primary charge.”

He added: “No one in this country has a stronger connection to the fight for free speech than Black people. When the Bill of Rights was passed in 1791, people of African descent were considered property; we had no rights. It wasn’t taken for granted that it was for us… When they come after us on the issue of free speech — freedom we never had — they’re not just coming after us: they’re coming after you. They’re coming after everyone.”

In the subsequent briefing

Angela Reaney, an attorney who is part of the Uhuru 3 defense team, spoke at a briefing with supporters. “We must resist the idea that we have to follow the rules,” she said. “The APSP has the courage to say what it wants and that cannot be criminalized. If we lose today, it simply means we will have the opportunity to make a greater impact on the Supreme Court.”

Attorney Mutaqee Akbar, legal counsel for Jesse Nevel, added: “This only happens when you speak out against what the government says we shouldn’t talk about. The fact that this is unfair only means we must keep fighting. The fight continues.”

At a rally held the day before the court hearings, Yeshitela declared, “We stand firmly on the side of the oppressed, without apology.… We were attacked for pushing forward the fight against colonialism.” He referenced a recent 100-page U.S. government document alleging that Cuba harbored an international terrorist network — involving figures such as Robert F. Williams and Assata Shakur^[2] — and asserting that “Cubans are the problem; socialism is the problem.”

Goodman stated, “This is a First Amendment battle that attacks free speech; it alleges a conspiracy to spread Russian propaganda. The government did not proceed by issuing a FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] notification, but by deploying SWAT teams. There is no evidence that the defendants acted under the direction or control of Russia.”

Various organizations and prominent figures expressed their solidarity. These included the National Conference of Black Lawyers, local law students, veteran activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) of the civil rights movement, as well as Black liberation groups and community organizations.

Brenda López, representing the U.S. Hands Off Cuba committees, acknowledged the APSP’s historical support for Cuba, as well as its participation in leading the Hands Off Cuba campaign and in delegations to the island. According to the U.S. government, “Cuba represents a threat; they offer solidarity to the Black movement here and to international struggles,” López explained.

“Who was there to defend Angola from the South African apartheid invasion and secure Mandela’s release? It was Cuba. Our movements are interconnected: if they go after one of us, they go after all of us,” she said.

“McCarthyism is resurfacing,” López warned. “Organizations and activists in solidarity with Cuba must join this defense, because the government will use the same argument: that we are acting as agents of Cuba simply for telling the truth about its revolution.”

“Hands off Uhuru! Hands off Cuba! Yes to Cuba, no to the blockade!”

Mark Friedman is a member of the International Machinists Association (IAM) and leader of the Los Angeles Hands-off Cuba Committee.

NOTES

[1] Marcus Garvey (1887 – 1940) was a Jamaican political activist and the founder and first president-general of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA), through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Garvey was a Black nationalist and pan-Africanist, advocating a unified Africa and racial pride.

Garvey emigrated to the United States in 1916, where he began organizing a chapter of the UNIA. In 1922, he was imprisoned on charges of mail fraud; his sentence was commuted in 1927, and he was deported back to Jamaica.

Malcolm X, born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, emerged as the outstanding leader of the popular struggle for Black liberation in the United States, one of the most important political developments in the last half of the 20^th century.

As a young man, in prison accused of petty crimes, Malcolm began to study seriously, adopted Islam as a religion, and joined The Nation of Islam — a bourgeois-nationalist, religious organization. After his release from prison, he became a minister of the Nation and one of its most prominent spokespeople.

However, Malcolm became convinced that the vision of the Nation did not offer a political trajectory that could liberate his brethren from racist discrimination and oppression. As he pointed out after his public break from the organization in March 1964, it “didn’t take part in politics” and its hierarchy, led by Elijah Muhammad, was “motivated mainly by protecting its own self-interests.”

In April 1964, Malcolm formed the Organization of African American Unity (OAAU) and adopted a perspective that came to be known as Black Nationalism. But his voice increasingly became that of a revolutionary leader of the working class and its allies.

Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965. Although members of the Nation of Islam were formally charged, allegations persist to this day that the New York Police Department, the CIA, and the FBI played a role in his killing.

[2] Robert F. Williams was born in Monroe, North Carolina, in 1925. As a young man, he joined the “Great Migration” north and went to work in the factories of Detroit. After being drafted in 1944, Williams served in the military until the end of World War II, when he returned to Monroe.

There he involved himself in the fight to desegregate the town, becoming president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). But in that town of just 12,000 people there was a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan of nearly 7,500. Faced with the violence of the Klan — and police — against the Black community, Williams became an advocate of his people’s right to armed self-defense.

In 1959, a white couple — known racists — were confronted by an angry crowd in Williams’ neighborhood. They sought refuge in his house but later accused him of having “kidnapped” them. Facing a federal warrant, Williams left North Carolina and eventually ended up in Cuba in 1961. He returned to face charges in 1969.. The case was dismissed at the request of prosecutors in 1975.

Assata Shakur was born in New York City in 1947. She was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. In 1973, she was charged with murder following a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that left one of her friends and a New Jersey state trooper dead. Shakur herself was critically wounded while still in the seat of the car. She was sentenced to life plus 33 years, although no evidence linked her to the weapons involved and the defense was denied the right to present evidence that the traffic stop was politically motivated.

In 1979, with the aid of her comrades, Shakur escaped from prison and ultimately found refuge in Cuba in 1984. The Cuban government recognized Shakur as a political prisoner, targeted because of her political views and activism in the Black liberation movement, and — in keeping with international law — welcomed her, granting her asylum and permanent residency. She spent the next 40 years on the island, free but with a $2 million bounty on her head. She taught English, expressing herself through art, and working on various projects that brought together Black people from around the globe.

Shakur died in Havana in 2025.

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