From SNCC to Reparations: Lessons in Solidarity and Student Activism

Chairman Omali Yeshitela presents his new book “The Verdict Is In: Reparations Now!”, a collection of testimonies delivered at the first World Tribunal on Reparations for African People, held in 1982 in Brooklyn, New York. For the next 40+ years, the Reparations Tribunal convenors, led by African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela, have incorporated the reparations demand into Black community struggles against police violence, unjust imprisonment, denial of decent housing and healthcare, poor education and for Black Power around the world.

Today, the results of that effort can be seen in state and municipal reparations bills and programs throughout the U.S. as well as new reparations studies and demands from African activists and heads of state internationally. At the same time, Chairman Yeshitela has been indicted by the U.S. government in 2023 on widely-denounced federal charges of acting as a Russian agent for his work advocating for Black reparations. The Verdict Is In: Reparations Now! sheds light on an early effort to investigate and document the legitimacy and legal basis for the reparations demand, while exposing the fallacy of the U.S. government’s charges of a Russian influence as instigator of the movement for Black reparations.