They pulled up, exited their vehicles and moved as a group. When the vigil ended, personal security elements interrupted the flow of traffic as they convoyed to their next destination.

A crowd of approximately 25 members of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) and the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) gathered Saturday morning at the intersection of 2nd Avenue S and 9th Street, the site of the brutal 1914 lynching of John Evans, an African-American laborer.

USM is an organization of white activists that vocally supports the APSP, better known as the Uhurus. A St. Pete-based movement, they seek reparations, fair treatment and greater autonomy in black communities that, despite efforts like the Civil Rights Movement, still suffer from gross economic disparity, police violence and, activists say, seeming ambivalence on the part of political leaders.

Over a century on, the group is seeking justice for that lynching and others.

“We have determined that John Evans be avenged not out of some emotional tantrum we might have, but because we know that a social system has to be overturned for everybody on the planet to be free,” said Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the APSP.

The vigil for Evans, who was hung and shot by a mob of some 1,500 white men, women and children, was hosted by USM, initiating a national conference on reparations to the black community.

Yeshitela gave a sermon-like speech about the attacks on Africa which lead to white power and the continued oppression of African people.

He likened the presence of St. Petersburg’s Holocaust Museum to a foul gesture directed towards indigenous people who were forced off of the land and into concentration camps referred to as reservations and to Africans who were forced to build the economy, yet never reap the benefits of their hard work. Yeshitela also said he believes that the Holocaust was a cover for the terror that gave rise to capitalism and murder of a vast majority of people.

“I’ve heard white people who live here refer to this place as paradise…but it’s paradise that’s been created at the expense of real human beings, who had families, emotions, cultures, economies, and everything else before this paradise was created at our expense,” declared Yeshitela.

Yeshitela encouraged white women and white homosexuals to join the African revolution to overturn white power.

“We have the ability under the leadership of the African revolution, it’s not about racism, it’s not about undoing racism, it’s about overturning a system built on the backs of African people, and liberating not only Africans but the world, we have the ability to find true redemption through reparations to African people,” said Penny Hess, chair and member of Uhuru Solidarity Movement since the 1970s.

Advertised as a gathering opened to the public, the vigil was bordered by personal security who redirected pedestrians and bicyclists off the sidewalk, refusing to let them pass through the group.

Supporters held handmade poster boards and participated in call and response chants of “Uhuru,” a Swahili word meaning “freedom,” and “reparations now” when names such as Trayvon Martin, John Evans, Sandra Bland, and Tyron Lewis were shouted.

When asked for individual comment, supporters immediately deflected to leadership, stating they were a united front in the presence of press.

This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2016.