The Uhuru Movement is a political organization centered around the principles of Pan-Africanism, which advocates the economic and political liberation of Black Africans on both the continent of Africa and in the African diaspora, as well building economic and sustainable development in Black African and diaspora communities. 'Uhuru' is the Swahili word for freedom.^{[citation needed]} Since 1972, The Movement has been led by Omali Yeshitela, the head of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP). [1]

The APSP has formed several organizations, each with specific tasks and purpose. Affiliated organizations include The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, African Socialist International, UhuruNews.com, African People's Solidarity Committee, Uhuru Solidarity Movement, The Black is Back Coalition, Burning Spear Productions, Uhuru Foods, Uhuru Furniture All African People's Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP),and African People's Education and Defense Foundation (APEDF).

The movement has called for the release of all African American prisoners in US prisons, described as "concentration camps", and has described US police forces as an "illegitimate standing army". They have called for the withdrawal of police forces from exploited and oppressed African American communities.

Omali Yeshitela (born Joseph Waller, October 9, 1941, St. Petersburg, Florida) the founder of the Uhuru Movement, a left wing, African Internationalist organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Yeshitela participated in the American Civil Rights Movement in his youth during the 1950s and 1960s as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the height of the civil rights movement in St. Petersburg, Waller was jailed for an act of civil disobedience in 1966, when he tore a mural in City Hall depicting degrading caricatures of African Americans. Waller spent two and a half years in jail and prison. After his release, he was stripped of his right to vote for decades until Governor Jeb Bush and three members of Florida's Cabinet restored his voting rights in 2000.

In his civic activism in his native St. Petersburg, Yeshitela has stressed his view that political and economic development will bring peace to African American neighborhoods.

Winston Rodney, OD (born 1 March 1945), also known as Burning Spear, is a Jamaican roots reggae singer and musician. Burning Spear is known for his Rastafari movement messages.

Rodney was born in Saint Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica, as were reggae singer Bob Marley and political activist Marcus Garvey who both had a great influence on Rodney's life: Garvey in his philosophy, which Burning Spear greatly took to, and Marley in directly helping Burning Spear get started in the music industry (by some accounts) by introducing him to Clement Dodd. Rodney met Marley at the latter's farm in 1969, and having told him that he wanted to get into the music business, Marley advised him to start at Dodd's Studio One label.Reggae singer Larry Marshall claimed that it was he, while visiting St. Ann's Bay with Jackie Mittoo, who was approached by Rodney, and gave him this advice, and arranged the introduction.