youth4mumia The MOVE Organization

MOVE

The MOVE Organization is a seriously committed family of revolutionaries founded and coordinated by JOHN AFRICA, a wise, perceptive, strategic minded black man. JOHN AFRICA coordinate MOVE people to believe in one thing, LIFE, because JOHN AFRICA has the absolute understanding that LIFE is the priority, that nothing is more important or even as important as LIFE, the force that keeps us alive. JOHN AFRICA coordinate MOVE to do everything we can to protect LIFE - to protect air from pollution, water from poison, soil from toxic waste, defenseless animals from slaughter, old folks and children from abuse, and all living beings from enslavement and exploitation.

JOHN AFRICA have given MOVE people the understanding that all LIFE, every living being come from the same source, so all LIFE is really the same, all living beings are equally important and serves an equally important purpose that's arranged by GOD, Mom Nature, whether man can see it or not.

The Philadelphia based confrontation chapter of JOHN AFRICA's MOVE ORGANIZATION surfaced in the early 1970's with regular open "study sessions" on NATURAL LAW, the teaching of JOHN AFRICA; a car wash to raise funds for the Organization and meetings with numerous celebrities and organizations to inform them of the teaching of JOHN AFRICA. We met with such people and organizations as: The Druidic Society, The Daughters of the American Revolution, The Philadelphia Theosophical Society, Dick Gregory, Julian Bond, Walter Mondale, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, Caesar Chevez, Russell Means, Adelle Davis, Alan Watts, William Hinton, Richie Havens, Gov. Milton Shapp, Roy Wilkins, Buckminster Fuller, Ted Kennedy, Angela Davis and The Quakers, just to name a few of the people that we had personal contact with.

We also initiated hundreds of peaceful demonstrations against institutions of this system that exploit, abuse and kill living beings (children, the elderly, animals, the environment). We initiated long sustained demonstrations against homes for children and the elderly,the SPCA, Barnum and Bailey Circus, animal experimental laboratories, big industrial corporations that poison the air, water and soil. We were armed with the profound teaching of JOHN AFRICA, we were armed with the truth and when we start speaking the truth, start exposing what these institutions are doing to people, animals, Mom Nature, the people running the institution we were demonstrating against saw they had no defense against the truth JOHN AFRICA armed us with, but at the same time they had no intention of taking one single step to stop the wrong they're doing to LIFE. They got so messed up that all they wanted to do is shut us up, stop us, so they could keep on exploiting, abusing, killing LIFE without being made to face what they're doing.

The people running the institutions we protested would demand that we shut up and leave and when we refused, when we kept on exposing 'em with the truth, they'd call the cops on us to shut us up and get rid of us. When the cops would come, they'd automatically side with the institution we were demonstrating against and they'd tell us to leave. Our position with the cops is the same as it is with everybody else - dispute what we're saying or admit that we're telling the truth, leave us alone and address the real criminals. The cops did none of these things, what the Philadelphia police department (led by then Police Commissioner Joseph O'Neill) did was beat us up, lock us up and put all kinds of trumped up charges on us to keep us in jail. That's how MOVE people first got involved with the police and court system, by the cops and courts trying to stop us from protecting LIFE, we didn't initially just start confronting cops, judges and prison officials.

When MOVE people would try to take out charges against the cops that beat us bloody, the prosecutors' office (led by then District Attorney Edward Rendell) would refuse to accept our complaints. They'd say they investigated and the charges were unfounded, invalid. When we'd go before judges and tell them the truth, not only about the incident that brought us to court, but about this entire system, judges would go crazy, threaten us with contempt and ultimately call their sheriffs to attack us. We'd end up back in jail on contempt or assault charges. This led to us initiating demonstrations at individual police stations and against individual judges, at their homes. Cops would be called out to stop our demonstration (even though everybody is supposed to be guaranteed the right to peaceful protest by the U.S. Constitution) and the cops would really get vicious at these demonstrations because they're not used to people going to a judges home and telling his neighbors how corrupt he is.

Politicians and police became obsessed with eliminating this Organization, they came at us with everything they got. By 1977 MOVE people had been beat bloody and arrested hundreds of times; MOVE adults and MOVE children were attacked by cops; a number of MOVE women had been deliberately beat into miscarriage, or in the case of Rhonda Africa, she was beat so viciously when she was eight months pregnant that her baby was born with bruises all over his body and died shortly after birth.

Alberta Africa who is only five feet tall, was arrested at a peaceful demonstration when she was pregnant in April of 1975, and while at police headquarters, Alberta was held down on the floor by four big, tall white racist male cops and her legs were held spread apart while a six foot tall sick vicious black female cop repeatedly kicked her in the vagina til she miscarried.

In 1976, MOVE people were standing outside our house warmly welcoming our sisters and brothers home that had just gotten out of jail when cops from three different police districts came screeching up to our house in their patrol cars, hollering, screaming and swinging night sticks, beating MOVE people bloody. Janine Africa's three week old baby was deliberately knocked from her arms and trampled to death by cops, his tiny head was crushed. Janet and LeeSing Africa, two obviously pregnant MOVE women, were on their way to a store in 1973 when they were stopped by cops for no reason except that they were recognized as MOVE women. They were thrown stomach first against the side of the police van and both had miscarriages as a result of the police brutality they experienced that day.

This is five innocent MOVE babies brutally murdered by cops between 1973 and 1976, and there were countless vicious beatings of MOVE people during the same period. It is these vicious beatings, the murder of our babies and the obvious fact that we can't look to this system for relief or protection from this system, that made it necessary for us to take a serious defensive stand against any further injustice and brutality aimed at us by this system. On May 20, 1977, committed MOVE people initiated a demonstration on the platform we built in front of our home and told system officials very seriously over a loudspeaker that we ain't having no more sneak attacks, no more MOVE babies murdered by cops and no more MOVE men, women or children brutalized and unjustly imprisoned by cops, prosecutors and judges. We made it clear that we believe in self defense, that we are not masochistic or suicidal, and if they came at us we were prepared to defend ourself; we also demanded the release of MOVE political prisoners that were in prison for no other reason than bein MOVE members.

As a result of the May 20th demonstration, Judge Lynn Abraham issued criminal arrest warrants for us on conspiracy, weapons, riot and related charges; those warrants were sought and issued even though Police Commissioner O'Neill stated publically that we committed no crime. The warrants were issued on May 24, 1977 but the Philadelphia police department did not try to come into our home and arrest us; they did not attack us like they always did before when they saw us as defenseless; they just kept our home surrounded and under close surveillance so we couldn't leave the house without being arrested on those trumped up charges.

There was a year long stand-off between May 1977 and May 1978, and during that year city officials tried hard to break us; then-mayor, Frank Rizzo even got a court order from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to institute a starvation blockade in March 1978. A three block radius around our home was cordoned off, we were confined to our house and city officials denied us food and water (they shut-off our water); people were arrested if they tried to give us food or water, even though there were pregnant women, breastfeeding babies and young children in our house.

Because of public pressure that would not support Rizzo's tactics to persecute and starve MOVE, city officials began mediation efforts which resulted in a ten point written agreement proposed to us in May 1978. As a result of this agreement, the starvation blockade was lifted around May 8, 1978, after about 55 days, and city officials arranged the release of MOVE political prisoners as we demanded. Releasing MOVE political prisoners is the only thing city officials did, they did not comply with any of the terms of the Agreement they proposed.

Things came to head on August 8, 1978; city officials had hundreds of cops armed for war, and firemen, surround our home and try to kill us. They were armed with a cherry crane, a bulldozer, deluge hoses, tear gas, m-16's, shotguns, 9mm Uzis, shotguns, mini-ruger 14's and 38 service revolvers just to name a little of what was used on us. When our brother Delbert Africa, one of the last people to emerge from the house, came out with no shirt on and his hands in plain sight, showing that he was unarmed, he was viciously attacked by four stake-out cops. Although cops tried hard to kill MOVE people that day, shooting directly at MOVE people and in corners of the basement where they admit they heard babies crying, they only succeeded in killing one of their own, policeman James Ramp, and blamed it on MOVE. Nine MOVE people were tried on murder charges, each of the nine were convicted of murder, each was sentenced to thirty to one hundred years in prison and have been in prison for the past thirteen years despite the obvious innocence of every one of them.

ONA MOVE

THE MOVE ORGANIZATION

IN MOVE LAW WE TRUST!

ALL PRAISES TO THE ORDER OF LIFE!

THE POWER OF TRUTH IS FINAL!

LONG LIVE MOVE! LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA'S REVOLUTION!