Early Background
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.
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