Speakers

Dr. Aisha Fields is an applied optical physicist and International Director of the All African People’s Development & Empowerment Project (AAPDEP). As the AAPDEP Director, Aisha serves on the National Central Committee of the African People’s Socialist Party.

Aisha has helped to organize and coordinate AAPDEP’s community-based health care, agricultural and educational programs since the organization’s founding in 2007.

Appointed head of the COVID-19 people’s war commission established by Chairman Omali Yeshiela and the African People’s Socialist Party, Aisha has been responsible for leading the Uhuru movement’s COVID-19 response, organizing AAPDEP medical personnel to develop and distribute COVID-19 protocols and programs including an international telehealth program that offers African people worldwide the ability to make free virtual appointments with AAPDEP’s licensed medical professionals through Project Black Ankh.

An educator with more than 15 years of teaching experience, Aisha has worked extensively with African youth who have been pushed out of the public schools, teaching them math, science, and life skills. 

As an African Internationalist, Aisha believes firmly that the skills possessed by African people do not belong to us as individuals, rather they belong to and must be used for the benefit of the suffering masses of African people around the world in our struggle for African freedom and self-government.

Mwezi Odom is a leading member and organizer in the Uhuru Movement, a socialist and African Internationalist movement led by the African People's Socialist Party (APSP); founded in 1972. 

In January 2020 she joined the Party-led mass organizations of InPDUM, AAPDEP and ANWO to return her skills and contribute to the African Liberation Struggle.  Using her skills and training as a counselor and educator, Mwezi unites with the principles that her skills do not belong to herself as an individual, but rather to the whole African nation, and its development. With this, Mwezi returned her skills in mental health/education and joined the revolutionary non-profit All African Peoples Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) where she developed the Mental Health committee, building dual and contending power mental health programming in the interest of offering genuine support to African people suffering from mental and physical health problems caused by colonialism.

In November 2021, Mwezi joined the African People’s Socialist Party, to make herself useful to the vanguard worker’s party under the leadership of the African working class. She now serves as the Secretary General for the APSP-USA and leads the Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa Defense Campaign under the leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela. 

Mwezi is a proud African woman, a lover of African Internationalism, and she believes Africa and African people will be once again be Free and self-governing, in our lifetime. And, she is the mother to two of Africa’s best daughters.

layla-roxanne hill is a freelance writer, researcher + organiser, living + healing in glasgow, scotland. she thinks, feels + acts upon many things, including anti-colonial struggle + dual power. layla-roxanne is co-author/dreamer of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022) + the freely available graphic novel + animation, Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us. she is also active in the trade union movement, holding elected positions within the bureaucratic machinery. 

Sheila Silva is an African Brazilian and has lived in Frankfurt, Germany, since 2012.

Sheila has several interdisciplinary interests and is involved in politics, a passion that she developed in her childhood, going to protest with her parents, and having a political education at home.

She is the first woman in a family to attend college and earn a degree, despite navigating the discrimination and limited opportunities African descendants in Brazil.

Sheila also loves traveling, which allows her to broaden her horizons by connecting with people from other cultures.

National Chairperson. Based in the SF Bay Area. Pyxie has been organizing with the National Democratic movement of the Philippines since she was a student at San Francisco State University in 2012, and with GABRIELA USA since 2016.

GABRIELA USA is a progressive, grassroots, anti-imperialist national organization and chapter of GABRIELA, a National Alliance of Women from the Philippines. GABRIELA has over 200 women's organizations across sectors and regions, plus chapters and support groups of Filipino women, non-Filipino women, and children in various areas of the world.

Angelica is a recent immigrant to the US from Angola and is the founding Secretary of Maos Unidas pela Solidariedade based in Seattle, Washington. Maos Unidas formed on January 16, 2024 with the objective to defend human rights. 

Deputy Chair shoulders the responsibility to grow the African People’s Socialist Party’s Economic Front and provides economic programs for the masses of African people.

 Deputy Chair Ona Zene’ has been a force of nature since assuming this position only nine years ago.   When she declared that the African People’s Education and Defense Fund was the “Baddest Non-Profit on the Planet” we knew we were going somewhere!

 She has provided the vision and leadership for expanding all of the Party’s economic campaigns and institutions such as:

Black Star Industries, One Africa, One Nation Marketplaces, the Africans One Billion Strong Donor Campaign, Uhuru Foods & Pies, the Uhuru Houses/Akwaaba Hall and the Uhuru Furniture and Collectible stores.

DC Ona also led in the development of new institutions such as:  

• Zenzele’ Consignment:  Confident=Revolutionary-Style,

• UZI: A Thread of Freedom,

• NZO: African Style At Home and Abroad,

• Uhuru Design Studio, nfiniti match Speed Dating, and many, many more.

She have developed and trained African leadership; promoting and rebranding all the Party institutions and economic campaigns with a clear African message, our institutions are contending with the colonial economy----they represent dual and contending power. 

Deputy Chair Ona has carried out the vision of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and is the Architect of the Black Power Blueprint.  DC Ona has been on the ground in St. Louis acquiring and renovating abandoned black community properties and creating programs and institutions for economic and political power in the hands of the African working class.

Deputy Chair’s bold vision has led to the development of all the institutions of the Party, some of which were established up to 40 years ago.  She has brought vision and science all areas of work and stands as a champion of the African revolution.

Under DC Ona Zene’s leadership the Party is building a foundation of a liberated African economy! 

Jainabah Lumumba’s appreciation for the Spanish language is deeply rooted due to her family’s Cuban connection, particularly through her aunt, a Yoruba priestess who married a prominent Cuban leader within the practice. If granted a superpower, Jainabah would choose omnilingualism, aspiring to understand every language past and present. Currently pursuing a translator certification from the American Translators Association, Jainabah is driven by a passion for African Internationalism to bridge connections between indigenous and African communities through Spanish. Post-certification, Jainabah plans to delve into Haitian Creole and French, further enriching cultural understanding and communication.

El aprecio de Jainabah Lumumba por el idioma español tiene raíces profundas debido a la conexión cubana de su familia, particularmente a través de su tía, una sacerdotisa Yoruba que se casó con un prominente líder cubano dentro de la práctica. Si se le concediera un superpoder, Jainabah elegiría la omnilingüística, aspirando a comprender todos los idiomas pasados y presentes. Actualmente persigue una certificación de traductora de la Asociación Americana de Traductores, impulsada por una pasión por el Africanismo Internacional para tender puentes entre las comunidades indígenas y africanas a través del español. Después de la certificación, Jainabah planea adentrarse en el creole haitiano y el francés, enriqueciendo aún más la comprensión cultural y la comunicación.

Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona has been an Ethnic Studies educator for 24 years. She is dedicated to developing critical curriculum and culturally relevant artivism to transform the world by fusing community cultural knowledge with a focus on autobiographical counter-narrative through Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Association.

Guadalupe is chair of the Association of Raza Educators (LA) and on the Central Committee of Union del Barrio leading the work of the Commission of Women, ComiMujer.

Moureen is a Palestinian, born and raised in Texas where she has been involved in grassroots Palestine solidarity work since 2014 locally. Her organizing work, education, and experience in oral history projects intersected to offer an opportunity to produce her 2021 oral history film on themes of identity and belonging called Palestinian Stories from Texas, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Moureen has been involved coordinating educational and fundraising events in Texas and recently joined Eyewitness Palestine in December 2023. 

Having consistently held an active role as a healer dedicated to the wellbeing of her family, community building, and youth empowerment, Angélica moved towards an educational background seeking and obtaining a Social Work degree. Due to financial struggles the private university she attended seeking to enhance her opportunities for potential employment did the opposite withholding transcripts, limiting job opportunities within her field of study.

 Following her assault by Portland Police Angélica has been actively dedicated to creating spaces where we as people and communities, can take our mind off the pain as we continue to grow and reduce cycles of violence and oppression. This has been done through both her organizing work, as well as establishing her organization Growing Virtues. Growing Virtues offers wellness services for African and Indigenous people that create opportunities for collective healing and growth through offerings of mindfulness practices, functional nutrition education and space to heal the mind, body, spirit and soul. In addition to this; Growing Virtues offers resources that connect individuals dedicated to overturning the cycles of violence and harm. These ties to communal healing in tandem with the liberation of self and all colonized and oppressed peoples are tools that aid in allowing us to truly thrive in order to build the type world we see for both ourselves and one another. 

Throughout her journey of healing however, music has played a critical role with her love and passion for music beginning at the age of 3, singing alongside her father’s booming voice. Having sung at consecutive homegoings and funerals for more than a decade Angélica moved away from singing for a period of time. 

It is has been through the work of healing and liberating both herself and others that she has begun to sing wholeheartedly once again under the name AEMC.