Delbert Africa Solidarity Week

Some time during the month of June 2015, Our Brother Delbert Africa will be making an appearance before the PA Parole Board. This will be Delbert's first appearance since being denied in June of 2013. Delbert, like other Move Members, was denied Parole by the board based upon these reasons as states in his Parole Denial Sheet:

'Your minimization/denial of the nature and circumstances of the offenses committed.

Your refusal to accept responsibility for the offenses committed.'

Our Brother Delbert and the rest of our Family in prison are innocent. They need not accept responsibility and show remorse for something they did not do, and this system and it's officials know our family is innocent. At this point, our family has nothing to explain to the Parole Board. The Parole Board is in a position now where they have explaining to do.

Why is it that Leslie Grey, a former Police Officer who has VERY STRONG TIES to Law Enforcement communities in Pennsylvania, is allowed to make a decision and vote on Delbert being granted Parole?  This is a blatant conflict of interest this is the same woman who in December of 2014 voted on giving our Brother Michael Africa a five year parole hit.

Parole Board Members Michael Green and Jeffrey Imboden are appointees of Edward Rendell. Rendell being the former Governor of Pennsylvania, The former Mayor of Philadelphia, and the Former District Attorney of Philadelphia whose office prosecuted the Move 9 in 1980 for the murder of Police Officer James Ramp.

Yet another clear conflict of interest that the Parole Board will not acknowledge yet they want Move People to accept guilt for something they did not do. Your help is needed now. We have to keep the pressure on the Parole Board for the release of Delbert.

From June 1st - 5th, we are asking people to flood the phone lines of the PA Parole Board for Delbert Africa Solidarity Week. People can call the Parole Board (717) 772-4343.

Call and inquire into why:

(1) Leslie Grey, a former Police Officer who is new to the parole board and obviously has a clear bias against The Move Organization, allowed to vote over whether Delbert receives parole or not.

(2) Michael Green and Jeffrey Imboden who were both appointed to The Parole Board by the same man who prosecuted Move in 1980, Edward Rendell. 

Delbert has the recommendation of the prison for parole and also has a home plan and employment set up for him upon his release from prison so this is now in our hands. So, again, this entire week let's keep the pressure on the Parole Board. Again you can reach the Parole Board at (717) 772-4343 and demand Parole for Delbert (Orr) Africa AM-4985.

Ona Move 

The Justice and Accountability  Campaign 

For More Info People can go to:

Www.onamove.com

Move9Parole.blogspot.com

Facebook/Justice for the move 9 

Russell Maroon Shoatz on the 30th Anniversary of the Move Bombing

Ona Move

Long before it became apparent to most of us, following the teachings of JOHN AFRICA, the Move Organization aggressively tried to warn that unless a total change was undertaken, human kind would destroy themselves. Why? Because we had divorced ourselves from Mother Nature, from living in harmony with MOTHER NATURE.

We had become addicted to believing that we were so smart and clever, that our technology could solve any problem. In 2015, we know better. Now Mother Nature is taking her revenge through an ever-growing series of weather-related catastrophic events that render all of our technology of little use, and most of our scientists believe it is only going to get worse.

Humankind has been committing crimes against Nature, and the Move Organization, instead of being applauded for it's efforts to end this madness, have instead labeled the criminals, then killed and imprisoned for trying to right this wrong.

So we must all now seek to rectify this travesty by remembering their dead and their ongoing suffering, and demanding that all of the imprisoned Move Members be freed!

Ona Move

Russell Shoatz

Political Prisoner

Maroon

Mumia on The 30th Anniversary Of The Move Bombing

5/13/15

This essay was recorded on 4/26/2015 and was released on 5/13/2015 on the 30th anniversary of the MOVE bombing.

MAY 13TH AT 30

[col. writ. 4/26/15] © ’15 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Why should we care what happened on May 13th, 1985?

I mean, seriously, that was 30 years ago, a long time ago, way back when, know what I mean?

Most people won’t say that – but they think it.

I’ll tell you why – because what happened then is a harbinger of what’s happening now – all across America.

I don’t mean bombing people (not yet, that is).

I mean the visceral hatreds, and violent contempt once held for MOVE is now visited upon average people - not just for radicals and revolutionaries – like MOVE.

In May, 1985, officials justified the vicious attacks on MOVE children by saying they, too, were “combatants”. In Ferguson, Missouri, as police and National Guard confronted ‘citizens’ with weapons of warfare guess how cops described them in their own files?  “Enemies”.

‘Enemy combatants’, anyone?

Then look at 12- year old Tamir Rice, of Cleveland. A boy, treated as if he were a man.

Boys. Men. Girls. Women. It doesn’t matter.

When many people stood in silence, or worse, in bitter acquiescence to the bombing, shooting and carnage of May 13, 1985 upon MOVE, they opened the door to the ugliness of today’s police terrorism from coast –to- coast.

There is a direct line from then to now.

May 13, 1985 led to the eerie Robocop present.

If it had been justly and widely condemned then, there would be no now; no Ferguson, no South Carolina, no Los Angeles – no Baltimore.

The barbaric police bombing of May 13, 1985 and the whitewash of the murders of 11 MOVE men, women and children opened a door that still has not been closed.

We are today still living with those consequences.

-©’15maj

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Shaka Zulu On The 30th Anniversary Of The Move Bombing

A Message for MOVE (4:12) by Shaka Zulu

3/21/15

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Jaan Laaman On The 30th Anniversary Of The Move Bombing

5/10/15

 

 

Thoughts on Killer Cops and the May 13th, 1985, Move Massacre

 

     Almost every day the news hits us with another case of a man, a youth, sometimes even a woman, shot, choked, or beaten to death by cops.  Almost always the victims are people of color and usually the killer cop is white.  We are hearing a lot more about these cases, and that is probably because the brutality and killings are captured on video.  It is a lot harder for the government and mainstream corporate media to ignore these cases when the images are presented and see on various social media platforms.

     The sad and hard reality is that cops have been injuring and killing people, especially people of color for years and years.  Many of us might remember the names of some decades old victims: Clifford Glover, Eleanor Bumpers, Rodney King, Sean  Bell, so many other.

     We are coming up on the 30th anniversary of probably the most horrid modern day police killing of 11 people, including 5 children.  On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia police surrounded and besieged the home of the Move Family in a Black neighborhood in Philadelphia.  Move was and is a community and revolutionary organization that advocate for issues like natural and healthy nutrition, animal rights, opposition to government repression and corruption, including a long time exposure of and resistance to abuses and killings by the Philadelphia police department.

     On that May 13 morning, 30 years ago, the cops surrounded the home.  First they fired tear gas, and soon they began shooting bullets into the house.  Over 10,000 rounds were fired into that house.  Neighbors and live TV media were watching this police siege and assault.  After some hours the police launched an outrageous and horrible escalation of their assault.  A police helicopter swooped down over the house and dropped a bomb on the roof.  The bomb exploded sending pieces of the roof and house flying.  The bomb also set off a fierce fire, which soon spread downward across the whole house.  The fire also spread to the houses on both sides of the Move home.  Although fire trucks were on hand, the cops refused to allow firemen to fight the fire.  Ultimately the entire square block of 61 houses burnt to the ground.  Dozens of families, over 200 people, had their homes and all their possessions completely destroyed.

     As the flames were engulfing the Move home, a back door opened and some women and young children tried to run out.  Police opened fire on these women and children, driving most of them back inside.  Ramona Africa, clutching one young boy, Birdie Africa, ran through the bullets and made it out alive.  These were the only two survivors of this police massacre.

     Eleven Move family members dead.  A bomb, made by the FBI and given to the Philadelphia police department, is dropped on the roof of a family home.  The bomb explodes and begins a fire.  The fire department is not allowed to put the fire out, and one entire square block of houses is burnt to the ground.

     From this entire series of deadly and horrible events, how many people, would you suppose, were held accountable, faced criminal charges or went to prison?  One person, Move member Ramona Africa, who ran through police bullets and saved young Birdie Africa, was the only person who was charged and she went to prison for 9 years.  No police, government officials, fire department personnel, the cop who dropped the bomb or the helicopter pilot, were held accountable or charged with any crime.  11 people dead, 61 houses burnt  and not one cop or government official was held accountable for anything.

     Police killings in Philadelphia and across the U.S. have continued.  But the public's knowledge about such killings and people's outrage and resistance has also continued, and in this past year has grown into a national movement against killer cops and government repression.

     This Movement today is a proper memorial to the Move members and children who died 30 years ago.  We can never forget those who died and we must put an end to cops randomly killing, men, women and children.

     This is Jaan Laaman, your political prisoner voice -- until next time, remember, Freedom Is A Constant Struggle!"

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Rev. Pinkney on The 30th Anniversary of the Move Bombing

Rev. Pinkney on MOVE Bombing 30th Anniversary (3:01)

5/11/15

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Tom Manning on the 30th Anniversary of the Move Bombing

Tom Manning on MOVE (3:13)

3/23/15

http://prisonbooks.info/2014/05/23/tom-manning-for-love-and-liberty/

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Bill Dunne on the 30th Anniversary of the Move Bombing

Bill Dunne on MOVE Bombing 30th Anniversary (2:05)

5/12/15

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Kerry Shakabooona Marshall on The 30th anniversary of The Move Bombing

The Day the Philly Police Bombed MOVE (2:26) by Kerry Shakaboona Marshall

4/9/15

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Natalie Demola on The 30th Anniversary of The Move Bombing

A Message for MOVE (2:02) by Natalie DeMola

4/8/15

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Lorenzo Cat Johnson On The 30th Anniversary Of The Move Bombing

30 years later: One of the most horrific displays of racism on U.S. soil.

May 13, 1985, multiple people were murdered; 5 were children. These human beings weren’t murdered for any wrongdoing on their behalf--they were murdered for their culture. So much for freedom of belief.

This massacre took place at MOVE headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after a non-violent standoff with police. Orders from Police Commissioner George Sambor were given to drop two explosive devices from a State Police helicopter onto the roof of the MOVE home...

A massive blaze was ignited that engulfed the whole building. This led to the burning of 65 homes--a whole city block. One of the two survivors, Ramona Africa, stated how firefighters stood by and watched the inferno under orders by the police to not stop the fire. The MOVE members who tried to escape the blaze were shot at by the police, causing them to run back into the fire... Afterwards the police would later claim that MOVE members were shooting at them.

In March of 1986, an investigation led by Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission issued a report that denounced the city’s actions, stating: "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row-house was unconscionable.” However, NO city official were ever charged.

In 1996, a federal jury concluded that the city used excessive force and violated MOVE members' constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure and prevented them from exercising their culture as they see fit according to their human rights.

Once again--NO ONE has ever been charged for this massacre...

The Pain Within

Free The Innocent,

Lorenzo "CAT" Johnson

5/10/15

May 13th Move Commemeration by Sundiata Acoli

MOVE Commemoration (6:21) By Sundiata Acoli

1/9/15

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Rafael Cancel Miranda On The 30th Anniversary Of The Move Bombing

Message from our heroe, former political prisoner Don Rafael Cancel Miranda to MOVE:

Message to the 30th Anniversary Commemoration to the MOVE comrades:

For the sake of our people, let us not forget the sadistic massacre committed against the men, women and children of MOVE on May 13, 1985. This was really a crime against humanity. The Puerto Rican people have also been massacred by the same enemy (Ponce Massacre – March 21, 1937).

I thank the organizers and all the people who are remembering this criminal event. In the name of all conscientious people, I salute you. Those who committed this crime are still in power; perhaps with a different name, but with the same mentality. By knowing them, we will be better prepared to face their attacks. The enemy does not sleep; therefore, we must stay awake.

A special embrace for Ramona Africa and Mumia.

Rafael Cancel Miranda
Former political prisoner

German Support Network On The 30th Anniversary Of The Move Bombing

German Solidarity Address for the May 13, 2015 MOVE Commemoration

At this 30th anniversary of the MOVE massacre in Philadelphia, we here in Germany feel very close to you even despite the physical divide of more than 4,000 miles.
The daily incidents of brutal police violence against African Americans but also poor white folk in recent months have shocked millions of people in Europe and Germany out of ideas that were perhaps somewhat naïve before into reality:
A system that for many citizens has become a police state, where might makes right and those who supposedly “protect and serve” the community all too often act as a hostile occupying power in the service of both white supremacy and the one percent.
All of us could have known before. It has all happened before, and on an even larger scale.
On May 13, 1985, a protest by MOVE against the incarceration of their comrades since 1978 that had involved no violence beyond the use of loudspeakers and bullhorns, ended in a wholesale police-organized slaughter in which five children and six adults perished.
The bomb then dropped on the MOVE house at 6221 Osage generated a fire almost as hellish as the one on 9/11 in New York, but quite officially, the decision was made to let the fire burn – a fire that then proceeded to consume a whole city block. Those responsible later said they had to protect the neighborhood from the intolerable terroristic behavior of MOVE.
“One is reminded,” Mumia has written about another case of racist police brutality, “of the saying that came out of the Vietnam War when U.S. troops ravaged and napalmed villagers: ‘We had to destroy the village in order to save it.’”
When it came to rescuing the occupants of 6200 Osage block from loud demands to act for justice for the incarcerated MOVE 9, May 13, 1985 was undoubtedly quite effective: The whole of 6200 Osage Avenue was no more.
The “power structure,” as Huey P. Newton used to call it, is often ready to go to the bitter end of exterminating live human beings to prevent simple calls for justice from being heard. And often it succeeds for a while. It then seems as if the battle against it is utterly hopeless.
One of those who has constantly reminded us to not judge reality by its depressing appearance is Mumia. When MOVE staged a tiny demonstration on the 8th anniversary of the massacre, he reported on it even though by then he had himself been in prison for more than eleven year.
Different from the mainstream media, he saw in the demonstration, small as it was, the portent of important things to come. Here is what he said.
“30 to a 100 years no more, free MOVE now, open up the door!” A marcher’s chant. […] “We’re fired up, still on the MOVE.” A march chant. Their voices were light, heavy, thin, and thunderous. Theirs were the voices of MOVE men, MOVE women, and MOVE children, the young sons and daughters of revolution.
Of course today’s right-wing bigots pretend to be shocked at the mere thought of children doing something that could be interpreted as political, like when a teacher allows young students to write post cards to express human compassion with a prisoner. These are the same people who have no trouble marching their children to the shooting range and training them in the mock-killing of people.
Different from them, Mumia is no hypocrite and of course welcomed the MOVE children’s participation in the action.
The MOVE children who were at the demo 22 years ago are now adults. They have carried the torch of freedom for all those years. They’re still fired up, but by a fire very different from the one that annihilated 6200 Osage Avenue in 1985, the fire of the cry for freedom, justice and human rights, a fire that is an inspiration for thousands upon thousands of people all around the world.
Let the one percent and their racist minions be assured that not only MOVE, but all of us will let this fire burn until justice is done and the MOVE 9, Mumia, and all the other captives of Babylon are free.
The German Network against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal Frankfurt
Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal Heidelberg
Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal Nuremberg
Coalition to Free Mumia Berlin