Black in the U.S.S.R: The Black Hammer Story
We previously reported on a story tying together a Russian espionage campaign with criminal charges including kidnapping, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, aggravated assault, and criminal street gang activity. A Department of Justice release back in 2022 detailed an alleged Russian espionage operation involving American political organizations, including “U.S. Political Group 2”.
The Black Hammer Party, which describes itself as a "symbol of hope for the colonized working class,” was U.S. Political Group 2. They were accused of taking orders to conduct influence campaigns on behalf of Russia in exchange for funds from Russian Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, head of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), which promotes secessionist movements in other countries.
In 2014, AGMR hosted a conference of secessionist groups including speakers like Michael Hill, head of a group called the League of the South, a "Southern secession" group. A larger conference of separatist groups in March of 2015, the first of a series of meetings ironically called "the Dialogue of Nations,” called “The International Russian Conservative Forum.”
Held at the Moscow Hotel in Saint-Petersburg, the forum included Russian-backed separatists from eastern Ukraine, EU secessionist groups, and groups from the United States like Black Hammer.
The money Black Hammer allegedly received to act as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia was reportedly used in part to fund a protest at the headquarters of Meta Platforms, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company. The protest was about Meta’s censorship of Russian astroturf posts supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Black Hammer itself served as a vocal supporter of. A video of the protest was posted to the groups YouTube channel.
The Black Hammer Party, also known as the Black Hammer Organization and simply the Black Hammers, is a now mostly defunct Black nationalist group that claims to advocate for “anti-colonial causes” on behalf of “all black and indigenous” people. They also promote “anti-capitalism,” and the so-called “Land Back” movement, described as an effort to “take all of our continents back from the colonizer.”
Black Hammer was founded in Atlanta in 2019 by former members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP), like the groups leader Augustus C. Romain, Jr. Black Hammer rose to prominence in the national racial unrest following the George Floyd protests, when it tried to build a compound in the Rocky Mountains named "Hammer City."
While usually considered a far-left extremist group due to its heritage in the APSP, in addition to the Meta protest described above, Black Hammer staged protests in support of the January 6 insurrectionists (Romain, Jr called them “Freedom Fighters,”), promoted the Proud Boys, advocated for segregation in a video titled “Why I agree with MAGA,” promoted election and vaccine conspiracy theories, and vocally supported Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far right Congressional Representative from Georgia.
In April of 2020, the group launched a campaign using the hashtag “2BFrank,” arguing that Anne Frank’s story was an extension of colonialism and should not be taught because the “true victims of genocide” are “the African and Colonized.”
In an article on their website from February 2021 addressing accusations of antisemitism based on this campaign, the group claimed not to be anti-Semitic:
“Our criticisms have always been against white jews, who have just as much blood on their hands as any other colonizer… It should go without saying that after World War 2, white jews would go on to colonize Palestine. Had Anne Frank lived, there is no doubt that she would have been among the millions of white jews who helped push Palestinian mothers into the sea to drown in order to take their land. Fuck Anne Frank.”
Meanwhile, just after May Day in 2021, the group’s Twitter account shared a post about burning copies of The Diary of Anne Frank which was retweeted over 700 times.
They also referred to Frank as a "bleach demon" and claimed that proceeds from the sale of her diary fund a “genocide of Palestinians.”
According to multiple articles by the group, the group is “in full support of the abolishment of Israel.” An article from May 2021 on their website, titled Devil Colonizer Jews Continue Palestinian Genocide and Terrorism, states that Israel, “has been steadily ramping up its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians these past couple months as the bleach demon colonizer jews [sic] scream for genocide proudly and with a racism paralleled by its father colony, amerikkka.”
Another article published in 2021 praised Hamas stating that Israel “will be erased,” and the group also claimed that the United States and Israel were "scheming” to steal the West Bank “while the masses [were] distracted” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the summer of 2021, Black Hammer attempted to build what it called “Black Hammer City” in Colorado, with the group claiming that it had “liberated” hundreds of acres.
“In Hammer City, there will be no rent, no cops, no coronavirus, and no white people,” a Black Hammer member who went by “General Anco” announced.
Black Hammer members who moved to this new utopia found something else waiting for them. Former members describe being stuck in the wilderness with few supplies, and report that members got sick after burning mugwort for heat, poisoning themselves in the process.
It all came to an end after a confrontation between Black Hammer members and a local man who complained to Black Hammer that they were blocking the road with their cars. The man told police that several members approached him with guns, and one brandished a pistol threateningly. The owner of the land Black Hammer wanted to buy decided to back out of the deal, and police evicted the group off the land.
According to a report from the Colorado Sun, the organization’s New York chapter also accused Romain of “manipulating and abusing his acolytes,” especially young people “fresh out of high school or college,” and claimed Romain frivolously spent the money raised to build Hammer City while rank-and-file members suffered homelessness and abuse.
Augustus C. Romain, Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo, was charged in federal court in April of 2023, accused of being part of a Russian Psy-Op campaign in exchange for a variety of benefits from Alexandr Viktorovich Ionov, who has connections to Russian intelligence by way of the FSB, according to a federal indictment.
Romain was previously arrested in 2022 when local police officers responded to a home on Selwyn Court in Fayetteville, GA after a man called 911 and claimed he had been kidnapped and held against his will in the home's garage. According to the warrant, Romain pointed guns at two victims and forced them into the garage so that he "could anally sodomize" at least one of them.
Romain was charged with two counts of aggravated sodomy, conspiracy to commit a felony, false imprisonment, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and criminal street gang activity, according to a press release from the Fayetteville Police Department.
An associate of Romain, 21-year-old Xavier "Keno" H. Rushin, was also charged with crimes including kidnapping, assault, and false imprisonment. When police searched the home, they also found 18-year-old Amonte T. Ammons dead from what police called an “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”
Romain, along with Omali Yeshitela, 82, Penny Hess, 78, Jesse Nevel, 34, all of St. Louis, were charged in a superseding Federal indictment on April 13, 2023, on charges of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government and failure to register as agents of a foreign government.
Omali Yeshitela is the co-founder and current chairman of the African People's Socialist Party that Black Hammer splintered off from, and the author of books like Reparations Now!, and Overturning the Culture of Violence (co-authored by Penny Hess).
Penny Hess is the chairperson of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, which bills itself as “an organization of white people organizing in solidarity with the movement for the liberation of Africa and African people,” that “works under the leadership of the Uhuru Movement, led by the African People’s Socialist Party.”
Jesse Nevel is an organizer and member of the same movement, which some former members describe as a cult.
The Federal trial took place in September of 2024. The results depend on whether you believe the Department of Justice or “the official organ of the African People’s Socialist Party,” the Burning Spear.
The DOJ says that the defendants were “convicted… of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government.”
The Burning Spear says that,
“The 12-person jury concluded a not guilty verdict on count number 2, “failure to register as a foreign agent,” in other words, working as agents of Russia. This was the big charge that carried an up to ten year prison sentence. The jury contained no black jurors, but to their credit, they saw clearly that African people have agency and sovereignty over their actions.
The government presented 14 witnesses, 12 of them FBI agents, while the defense needed to present no witnesses to prove that the government’s accusation of being Russian agents was fabricated.
The jury returned a guilty verdict on count number 1, “conspiring against the U.S. government.” This charge carries a maximum of five years.”
The defendants were found guilty on charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act based on what the jury felt the prosecution was able to prove. According to the Department of Justice press release celebrating the conviction,
… evidence presented at trial … shows that Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel agreed to act on behalf of the Russian government within the United States at the behest of Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), an organization headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and funded by the Russian government.
The release further states that Ionov’s influence efforts were
… directed and supervised by Russian intelligence officers including Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov. In May 2015, Ionov invited Yeshitela to Russia for an all-expenses paid trip to “communicate on future cooperation.” Prior to this trip, Hess relayed a request to Ionov to ensure that Yeshitela would be able to meet with an “official representative of the Russian government.”
According to subsequent emails, which were shared with Hess, Nevel and Romain, Yeshitela explained that it was “clear” that Ionov was an instrument of the Russian government. Yeshitela further explained that Ionov represented “a method by which the Russian government is engaging the U.S. and Europe in serious struggle” by utilizing “forces inside of the U.S. to s[o]w division inside the U.S.”
In a subsequent meeting, at which Hess and Nevel were also present, Yeshitela explained that Ionov would only provide resources for actions that would support Russia’s efforts to “undermin[e] the U.S.”
According to the Department of Justice press release, Ionov told Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel to submit a petition to the United Nations charging the United States with actively committing genocide against African people in August of 2015. Hess resisted, and Ionov insisted that they had to publish the petition because their Russian backers were “not exactly Black to demand it for ourselves.”
Hess published the petition, which Ionov then promoted in Russian media. A few months later, in January of 2016, Ionov gave the group a $12,000 guarantee letter to fund a tour to promote the genocide petition. According to the Justice Department,
Yeshitela and Hess oversaw the tour and reported to Ionov about the tour. Following the tour, Yeshitela described how they had “developed a relationship with forces in Russia who are involved in their own struggle with the US.”
In 2017 and 2019, Ionov attempted to influence elections in St. Petersburg, Florida, on behalf of the FSB, although the Justice Department says there is no evidence that his efforts were a success. In July 2017, Ionov gave Nevel — an unlikely candidate for Mayor in St. Petersburg — “campaign finance.” In 2019, Ionov regularly reported to the FSB about the candidate “whom we supervise.”
In January 2020, FSB Officer Popov told Ionov that the United States’ 2020 Presidential election was the FSB’s “main topic of the year.”
In April 2020, Ionov invited Nevel and Yeshitela to speak at a conference to promote Russian-backed secessionist movements in eastern Ukraine. Yeshitela also provided a video showing support for the Russian-backed secessionist group, which Ionov reported to the FSB concerning these activities.
In late February 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ionov complained to FSB Officer Sukhodolov about Russia’s failure in the information war surrounding the invasion, at which point Sukhodolov directed Ionov to “join in” the information war. Ionov then directed Yeshitela and Romain to engage in demonstrations at Meta’s company headquarters in California against the suppression of pro-Russian viewpoints.
The Justice Department says that Ionov paid for Romain and three other other members of Black Hammer to fly to California, and that Yeshitela directed members of the APSP located in California to conduct a similar protest a few days later. After the Black Hammer demonstration, Romain messaged Ionov, saying, “This is great! That was fun! Who we attacking next? With more time I can get a bigger crowd.”
In May 2022, Ionov directed Romain to hold demonstrations outside of CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, to celebrate Russia’s “Victory Day.” In June 2022, at Ionov’s direction, Romain demonstrated at the Georgia state capitol in support of Russia. During the demonstration, Romain stated that he was “not ashamed to say that the Black Hammer Party has relationships with the Kremlin.”
A sentencing date for the Federal trial has yet to be set at the time this was written; the defendants face up to five years in prison. The Georgia trial over the 2022 arrest at Selwyn Court in Fayetteville, GA appears to have been dismissed. When asked why the case had been dismissed, the Fayette Court Clerk told us, “I can’t share that information over the phone,” and has yet to respond to our emails.
In 2023, the Atlanta Journal Constitution suggested that the case could be dismissed on the constitutional grounds of a right to a speedy trial.