Ramona Africa Source: AWOL Magazine
Revolution is not a philosophy, it is an activity.” — 25 Years On The MOVE
We speak with Ramona Africa, a member of MOVE and the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 police bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia, which killed eleven people. In the wake of the massacre, she was sentenced and served seven years for conspiracy, riot and multiple counts of simple and aggravated assault. No police officers were ever indicted for the massacre, despite the special commission evidence that indicated their culpability. During the interview, we’ll hear about Ramona Africa’s work as MOVE Minister of Communication on behalf of the MOVE 9, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all political prisoners and prisoners of war. She’ll also tell us about John Africa’s message of respect and reverence for life, and how this translated into actions for animals, people, and the earth.
More on the MOVE Organization…
“MOVE’s work is to stop industry from poisoning the air, the water, the soil, and to put an end to the enslavement of life — people, animals, any form of life. The purpose of John Africa‘s revolution is to show people how corrupt, rotten, criminally enslaving this system is, show people through John Africa‘s teaching, the truth, that this system is the cause of all their problems (alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, wife abuse, child pornography, every problem in the world) and to set the example of revolution for people to follow when they realize how they’ve been oppressed, repressed, duped, tricked by this system, this government and see the need to rid themselves of this cancerous system as MOVE does.” — 25 Years On The MOVE, 1996, p. 3
More from Ramona Africa…
“The Move organization started out 20 years ago in the early seventies, founded by a wise, perceptive, sensitive, black man called John Africa. John Africa taught us to respect and revere life. Based on that belief, we had peaceful demonstrations at the zoo in Philadelphia and in the Bronx. We demonstrated against unsafe boarding homes for the elderly; and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for their mistreatment of animals. We went to symposiums and conferences on gang warfare. When we would go to the zoos or to any type of demonstration around animal rights, we hit them hard. We asked people what made them think that the mink coat looked better on them than on the mink. I mean, these people are arrogant.” — “On a Move!” by Ramona Africa
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