Uncover - S20 "The Africas VS. America" E7: Elegy

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

After a commission finds that city officials and police were negligent in their actions on May 13, 1985, a reeling city looks to heal, and surviving members of the Africa family redouble efforts to free the MOVE 9. Two senior members are released from prison having served more than 40 years. They now have reservations about the MOVE organization. A rift in the family opens up. By the end of 2020, all remaining MOVE 9 are free. Delbert dies only months after his release, and the family now turns its focus to the future. The descendents of MOVE remind us the fight for liberation continues.The Africas VS. America is nominated for a Webby! Vote for the series here.

This is a very strange and frustrating story. To have your family member stolen and murdered, then missing. I'm Connie Walker and this is Missing and Murdered, Finding Cleo. It's such a mystery, such an impossible task. Please, help us find her. Finding Cleo. If you'd like to hear more, you can find the full season wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast.

Before we start, a heads up. This episode includes explicit language. This is crazy. I'm back at the House of Correction where I was born, trying to actually go in, be inside of it for the first time since I was born back in 1978. This is crazy. I'm excited. Like, I probably shouldn't be excited to go to prison. I'm excited to go inside. Mike Africa Jr. is touring the Philadelphia jail where his mother Debbie was held during the trial of the Move 9.

She was taken here after the raid in 1978, along with the others. As long as they don't lock me in. Mike calls Debbie to help find his bearings. Okay, and you were all the way in the back on the left? For so long, this place was an abstraction. And this is what it would have been like in 1978? Basically, this format really hasn't changed. The jail was officially closed in 2020, so there are no inmates here today.

But you can still get a sense of what life was like back then. You see these are feeding windows. We don't want them to see who's getting the food. The heart of the facility is a cavernous rotunda. They come here, they get their tray. of the facility is a cavernous rotunda. Come here and get your tray. And then on the other side of this will be the ABC side. A1, A2, C1, and C2. So the actual shape of this place?

It's a wheel. We're at the center of the wheel now. Just knowing all of that history is here, the people going through what they went through in here. So many people were beat here. So many women were hurt. The guard escorts him to an old wing of the prison called G1. The paint is peeling off the walls.

The cells are empty. They're tarnished steel doors, all swung wide open. Two to three to a cell. Wow. Like, can you imagine this? At the very rear of G1, there were a few cells used to separate inmates from the general population. We're going to go all the way down to the one she was in. She said she was at the one all the way at the end.

It's the corner cell, the last one on the wings. So these are the cots. The cell is this claustrophobic closet of a room. Two metal bed frames pretty much fill it. Mike lies down on one, his dreads now stretching across it. His eyes fixed on the ceiling. This is the room

where his life began. This is crazy. Trying to imagine my mom in here and having a baby in here. He gets up and walks over to one of the windows. If she wanted air, this is what she would have done. And she got two windows, but most of the cells had one.

But being this is a corner cell, she would have had two. Having a baby in the prison and then knowing that at some point they're going to come for you. This visit would punctuate a life spent grappling with prisons. A life spent in search of a tangible way to unmoor the system from its bearings. To liberate himself and others, even if it meant betraying old move orthodoxies. I'm Matthew Almahan, and this is the final chapter of the Africa vs. America. Chapter 7.

Elegy. I don't remember the first time I learned that I was born in prison. Three days after Mike was born in that cell, on September 15, 1978, he was taken away by the guards and placed in state care. I remember my cousin referencing it. I remember him teasing, like, kind of in a joking way, saying, you were born in prison, you were born a jailbird, things like that. Technically, Mike is a penal orphan, but his grandmother Laverne is awarded custody. And at this point, she's still a member of MOVE. So he's raised as a child of the organization, where biological bonds didn't much matter. So there's never any shortage of family, but it's also confusing.

The first memory of who I thought my mother was, was when my aunt told the kids to call her mom. And she was the one taking care of me. I was in Virginia with her from when I was born. I didn't know a difference between her kids and other kids in the organization or in the family. So when she said, I want y'all to start calling me mom, immediately I said, okay, mom. And she corrected me and said, I'm not your mother. I'm their mother, but I'm not your mother. So that kind of threw me into this kind of personal investigation, like, who is my mother then? Mike thought his mother could have been Birdie's mom, Rhonda, because of the way she loved on him.

his mother could have been Birdie's mom, Rhonda, because of the way she loved on him. I have a picture of her holding me and laugh. I got this biggest smile and laughing on my face. Being a community kid, you know, you're with different people. But, you know, some of them was more affectionate than others. I didn't ask anyone immediately because I was too ashamed that I didn't know. But later I asked what was the relationship. I found out who my actual mother was on a prison trip. And my grandmother took me to see her at Muncie State Prison. Mike was about five years old. I remember the look, the seeing her for the first time. I remember her coming out of that room while we were sitting in the waiting room.

When you go to the prison and you're at the prison, you see the different people coming out of the prison into the visiting room. I remember looking at them thinking, that's not her. And then when she came out, I remember thinking, I hope that's her. I hope that's her. Because the way she looked, and then I think one of my aunts

said, dig with Debbie, dig with your mother. And it was like, I already kind of felt it, but I was locked on her. My eyes were locked on her. So it was just like, when they said,

dig with your mother, I was like, okay. My eyes were locked on her. So it was just like, when they said, that's the dick of your mother, I was like, okay, cool, you know. Mike's father, Mike Africa Sr., was being held at Holmesburg Prison at the time. Debbie's mother, Laverne, and her sister, Sharon, had came up to the prison to visit. And they had Mike with them, maybe six months old.

I'm tapping on the window, hey man, hey Mike, hey, hey. And he was just looking, you know. It was three years before they saw one another again. I was glad to see him. And then the next year, again, Laverne had brought him up. And this time we had a talk. And I asked him what his name was. I said, you know what my name is?

He said, yeah, Michael. I said, you know why we have the same name? And he said, why? I said, because know what my name is? He said, yeah, Michael. I said, you know why we have the same name? And he said, why? I said, because you're my son. And he gave me a big hug, and he asked me, can you sneak home with us? And he said, I can't come home with you. And I said, why not? I said, we walked right in the door and when we leave we're going to walk out the door.

Why can't you just walk out when we walk out? And he said, I can't. And he changed the subject and we started talking about other stuff. And I hugged him and he hugged me and I don't know if he was crying but I think he might have been. You know, my dad don't really show emotions like that, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

It was hard going back that day. But Mike has always been a very loyal man, loyal son. Even after Mike learned who his parents were, where they were, he didn't fully comprehend why his parents were incarcerated until he was a teenager. And only then, because he overheard another MOVE member talking about his mother's 100-year sentence. I was shocked. And I think that's when I first started kind of,

it started to kind of set into me what was really going on. It was depressing. It was traumatizing. I mean, how do you tell a kid, your mom's got 100 years in prison? She ain't, you know what I'm saying? Like, she got a 30-year minimum. By the time she get home, you'll be a parent.

But Mike was a kid suffering from a kind of natal alienation. And he grew a bit obsessed. I started counting the days, going back and looking at calendars, making sure I got all the leap years to see how long, how many days I'd actually been in prison. I started looking for pictures of them together because they got together when they were real young. I mean, they went to prison when they were 21 and 22, so there weren't even a lot of even pictures of them where they were just together. I don't have any pictures of my dad doing anything or in street clothes. So it was like, that's the kind of stuff that all came to my mind. Like, the time when I need them, I don't have them.

By the time they actually come out, if they do, I won't need them. Like, the things that I need them to help me with, the people that I need them to protect me from, I need them now. me with, the people that I need them to protect me from, I need them now, and they're not here. On the day of the bombing, Mike was living just a few miles away from Osage Avenue at his grandmother Laverne's house. He was six years old, and he says he first heard of the bombing from neighborhood kids. Yep. Looking right over there, you heard of the bombing from neighborhood kids. Yep. Looking right over there, you can see the smoke looking that way.

You can see all the smoke. It looked like the whole sky was black. He remembers his aunts huddled around the television. They were sitting there watching the news, watching it happen on the news, crying. In the wake of the bombing, Mike was forced to grow up quickly. Both of his parents in prison, the specter of the authorities, including former Mayor Wilson Good, constantly hanging over him. I remember it always felt like things were going to get bad.

I always remember feeling uncomfortable. There was always this looming feeling of danger all the time. The sound of sirens was terrifying. If you want to scare a moved child, tell them something like, Wilson Good is around the corner. That was the boogeyman for me. That was the corner. That was the boogeyman for me. That was the terror.

And that terror he suffered from in his childhood, he turned it into purpose. I wasn't a kid. I was a full-grown revolutionary, bro. Like, I wasn't even playing. Like, we ready to change the world, motherfucker. Like, it is no time to be playing no games. It's too much work to do. Moo founder John Africa was among the 11 people killed in the

bombing on Osage Avenue. And once he was gone, the organization would never really be the same. With so many founding members now dead or in prison, Moo assumed a quieter presence. at least for a time. The lone adult survivor of the bombing, Ramona Africa, served seven years in prison for conspiracy to riot. But once she was released in 1992, she began canvassing the country as a representative of MOVE, and she took Mike Jr. with her.

as a representative of MOVE, and she took Mike Jr. with her. They visited campuses like Harvard and UCLA, talking about John Africa, the MOVE lifestyle, the story of the bombing, but also what they considered to be the false imprisonment of the MOVE 9. Mike was only 14 years old when they first started out, but for a kid with little formal education, these speaking tours were like an unofficial grad school program. She would take me to these meetings and sometimes the people would ask questions. What do you think about that? And I would be like, I don't know what you're talking

about, dude. I don't know anything about a forensics, this, that, and the other. I don't know what you're talking about. Mike began gaining confidence, learning, speaking up. So much so that eventually Ramona entrusted him as her stand-in. Okay, yeah, so then maybe she couldn't make a meeting, and she sent me. And that just kind of escalated. As the years went on, Mike began accumulating relevant evidence from the Move 9 case. Hundreds of boxes, full of old tapes and records, transcripts from the trial, as well as police witness statements. A treasure hunt for any morsel of information or evidence that might help exonerate his family.

They'd then share what they found with the Move 9, visiting whomever they could get prison access to. Mike found the work addicting. You know, I remember the person helping with it, and he would say, read every document. It doesn't matter if you have to read the entire Philadelphia Sunday paper to find that one line. Anything that somebody might say about MOVE. Read it. Look for the needle in the haystack. Find it.

And if you can't find it in this paper, find it in another paper. I wound up doing that stuff for over 25 years. Never give up, right? We worked on that case looking for that needle in the haystack. Mike's initial motivation was to free his parents and the other Move9. But John Africa's guidelines and move ideology also contained teachings on what we might today refer to as prison abolition. And for Mike, growing up in West Philly, the folly of mass incarceration was all around him. The fact that both prisons and the police had emanated out of chattel slavery was not lost on him. These connections he was making would only deepen

his commitment to free his parents. Over the next couple of decades, he'd build a mountain of evidence in the Move 9 case. But the city didn't seem much interested in hearing it. So a second-generation move, maybe it was time for some fresh ideas. Move is not about stagnation. Move is about movement. So I had to activate that and use that to activate others. I remember John Africa said, do what's necessary. That's a big thing in the organization. He said, do what's necessary.

Anybody that wants to help us do what we're doing, we welcome them. Anybody. These fresh ideas included a departure from what some had considered to be MOVE's conventional wisdom. Doing what was necessary, as John Africa had said, demanded that Mike use all tools available to him, even if it meant using the system itself. And I called meetings in the organization. What's our strategy? And I took different investigators to the prisons

to see the people so that they could talk to them. How do we approach this situation? Are we going to go the legal court route or are we going to go the parole route? Are we going to go litigation? Are we going to go civil? What are we going to do? I found different lawyers, different lawyers found me and we talked about it and we strategized about it and we went to those prisons. In addition to his work with outside counsel, Mike decided it had finally come time to sit down with former Mayor Wilson Good, making him the first in the family to do so since the bombing. And it was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. And it was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. The absolute, without question, the hardest thing that I ever had to do in my life. I had to sit across a table from Wilson Good and I had to talk to him.

And I had to listen to him. And I had to listen to him. And I had to interact with him. And that was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Because it felt like betrayal. The MOVE organization held Good responsible for what had happened. But to them, Good hadn't yet accepted responsibility. Instead, he'd gone silent while 11 people were killed and nine others sat in prison. Mike says Good offered his profuse apologies and that, much like in our interview with him years later,

Good said he believed the Move 9 to be innocent all along. years later, Good said he believed the Move 9 to be innocent all along. I spoke to my family, and I told them that Wilson Good, he wants to help get the Move 9 out. He said that he is sorry for what he did. He is sorry for what he participated in. He is sorry that people died. He's sorry that our people spent time in prison, and he wants to help get them out. And I went back to the quote John Africa said, anybody that wants to help us do what we're doing, we welcome them. And for that reason, I was willing to do whatever I had to do to get my people out of prison. And so in 2008, after more than a decade of organizing and compiling evidence,

after testimonies from the former mayor of Philadelphia, Wilson Good, and letters from prominent politicians, celebrities, and former prison guards, in addition to the list of achievements the Move 9 had accumulated while in prison, Mike's efforts had culminated in the hope that their first parole hearing might end in freedom. But they weren't so fortunate. Between 2008 and 2018, Debbie Africa, along with others in the Move 9, were repeatedly denied parole. Every time, every denial was devastating to Mike Jr.

When I was a young kid, I mean, I've been waiting for them to come home all my life, right? So when I was a young kid, I used to like when they would go court cases and like all that kind of stuff, I would always be hopeful. I used to think, like, damn, maybe they'll come home and I'll have a little brother or sister or something. I would always get let down. There was a time when I thought that they will possibly come out feet first. By 2018, Debbie had been denied parole eight times in total. in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. In the late spring of 2018, Mike and his wife Robin are at a public park with the family when they get a phone call. It's Debbie,

and she's a month and a half shy of her 40th year in prison. Oh, Debbie coming home! Robin leans in closely and hands the phone to Mike. He's sitting on a park bench beside his eldest son, who's squeezing his dad tightly around the waist. Debbie's finally been granted parole. Mike is joystruck. My name is Debbie Africa, and as you know... Just a few days later, Mike and Debbie call a press conference.

Most of you might know that I've been in prison almost 40 years. Mike and Debbie are seated together at a table, both in T-shirts bearing the photo of Delbert, taken in the moments before his beating at the hands of police. The local media is here too. You can see all the microphones just in front of them on the table. Mike's holding his young daughter A Aaliyah, on his lap. I was released on Friday, Saturday, Saturday. And I still don't think I've actually caught up with my emotions

on how happy it makes me feel, you know, seeing my family and being, I should say, united with my son because I've never been with him. I had him in my prison cell when I was in the House of Correction. And this is the first time we've ever been together in all those years. Behind them are nine photographs. Photos of the Move 9, including Mike's father, Mike Sr. nine, including Mike's father, Mike Sr. And although I felt excited and overwhelmed and happy to see everybody that came up to pick me up on Saturday, I still felt incomplete.

It shouldn't have been the fact that I left prison and my sisters Janine and Janet didn't because we came in on the same charges, but when it came time to get out of prison, they didn't do that the same. And so it's still a bittersweet victory for me. As for Mike Jr., he's also clear that the work has only just started. The fight don't stop just because one person is getting out. We've got a whole lot of other people to get out to. just because one person is getting out.

We got a whole lot of other people to get out to. So Janet and Janine, Eddie, Del, Chuck, here we come. And of course, after all these years,

can't forget about my dad. Have I ever told you my dad is my best friend? Really. Like, you know how people say that, and they be like, oh, my dad dad's my hero and all that shit. Well, you know, my dad's, but me, ever since we were, I was a kid, we've been bonded ever since.

Ever since. He's been my best friend ever since. Oh my God. Oh my God, I'm going to die. Four months later, in October of 2018, Mike Africa Sr. is released too. The family is gathered at Mike Africa Jr.'s home. As soon as Mike Sr. walks through the front door, he and Debbie race to one another. They embrace. Why is everybody so quiet? Mike Sr.'s head is tucked into Debbie's shoulder. When he finally comes up for air, they share a kiss and then just stare at one another.

They have seen each other just once since 1978. I've been waiting for this ride. Holy! She said that on the way out. You know how many years I've been? You say that on the way out. You know how many years I've been? Longtime Philadelphia reporter Lynn Washington said to me that Debbie and Mike Sr. had a Shakespearean love story.

And when I tell that to Mike Jr., I'm telling you, listen, let me tell y'all something about that love. Fuck Bonnie and Clyde. What's that motherfucker's name? Romeo and who? Fuck them. That love that my parents got is something on another fucking level. My dad loves my mom.

And that shit is magical. I ain't never seen anything like it. Six months after Mike Sr.'s release, in April 2019, he and Debbie were married in a ceremony just outside of Philadelphia. This is not just a reunion for us.

This is also a stand that we're taking to try to work to get the other people out too. So that's constantly on our minds because Eddie has kids that he needs to feel this same thing from. And so does the other people. So everybody has family. And over the course of the next few years, the floodgates would open. First came Janine and Janet Africa, who were granted parole a year after Debbie, in May of 2019.

And one month after them, out came Eddie Africa. This is something else. Yeah, indeed. Delbert Africa followed. He's greeted outside the gates of the state prison by a large welcome party that includes his daughter, Yvonneonne and MOVE veteran Pam Africa. I'm so glad to breathe that air. Breathe that air. In some ways, Delbert Africa has been frozen in time,

with his arms stretched to the sky as the police beat him unconscious. But he's so much more than what was done to him. He's been described to me as the embodiment of everything MOVE stood for. Incorruptible, unbowed, physically strong, and a natural leader. As John Africa receded from public view, it was Delbert who was subject to so much of the media scrutiny concentrated on the group. He was who led the organization through their porch speech in 1976, and he was on the front lines of most clashes with police. More than any other of the Move 9, it was Delbert who carried the passage of time on his face.

Yep. Oh. I'm crying. Me and you both. Oh, wow. How beautiful is this? He still had the energy and commitment all the same, but this was an older man, clearly weathered by his experience in prison.

His latter years were marked by visits to the prison infirmary. One of the nurses always used to come in there. She called herself being nasty, right? She'd say, anybody kicking? And I'd be saying, hell yeah, I'm kicking. I'm kicking like a mug. All right. All right. Del was a survivor. Delisha Africa was his daughter, and he watched from prison as the state bombed her home and left her to die in the ensuing fire. He would also serve more than six years in solitary confinement for refusing to cut his dreadlocks. 41 years stronger is the fate of John Africa, that's right. Delbert beats his chest as his welcome party hands him a sign with the words Long Live John Africa scrawled across it.

He then wipes his tears with a napkin. I like that. I love that. I love that. That's right. I love that. There you go. I love that. Long Live John Africa.

Love that. That's right. Yes. Delbert then describes his final moments in prison. I was telling them, brothers that were notorious inside Dallas prison, Khan Ali, Hop, they came by. We hugged, we had a meeting, and it was beautiful. You know, they came by and told me how much they appreciated, you know, the years. It was deep.

It was deep. 42 years of this thing, and I said, I hated to see them still there, you know, but it's good to be home. It's good to be home. It's good to be with family, with friends, and put that activity, that prison activity behind me. I'm glad. Delbert had plans for what this next phase of his life was supposed to look like.

This was supposed to be a new beginning, but also a continuation of the work Mike Africa Jr. had committed himself to. I told Chaplain Huck, I said, I'll be back to free somebody else. That's right. All right. That's right. Oh, man. Come here, dear.

Back in Philadelphia, Delbert is standing on a sidewalk with Janine and Janet wrapped in each of his arms. They pull their faces back, meet eyes, and laugh, then hug again, their cheeks touching. Then they walk, arm in arm. Yes! Yes! We're going to take you up there to Mona. Come on. Ramona Africa is here too, hunched over the walker she now uses to get around.

Long live John Africa. Long live John Africa. It's been a battle. That's right. It's been a battle. Ramona. On the move, girl. On the move.

On the move. On the move. On the move. On the move! On the move! The Move 9 spent decades of collective time in solitary confinement. Members say they were offered reduced sentences if only they would agree to disavow John Africa. But they exited prison all those decades later,

just as committed to the man they called the coordinator as when they went in. Free law! Bust a car! Free law! Long live revolution! Long live revolution! It was a happy moment, but it wasn't a happily ever after for the MOVE family. In so many ways, the release of the MOVE 9 was marked in the media as a story of resilience, a testament to progress and hope. For me, this framing has always felt like an evasion, a way of deodorizing the more complicated reality of their return, the reality of the price of freedom. Seven members of the Move 9 were released from prison between 2018 and 2020. the Move 9 were released from prison between 2018 and 2020. Merle Africa died in prison in 1998,

Phil Africa in 2015, both of cancer. Debbie Africa's younger brother, Chuck Africa, arrested in 1978 at 19 years old, was the last of the Move 9 to be released. He got out in February of 2020, but he died 19 months later, also from cancer. And in the end, Delbert Africa wouldn't make it more than six months on the outside. He died at home of a kidney condition. He was 74 years old. As things stand now, the Move 9 are survived by just five. Mike Africa Jr. and I have been making our way around West Philadelphia all day, from John Africa's childhood home to Mike's grandmother's house. But we're now on King Sessing Street, and we've just passed by a sprawling property with twin three-story houses in this leafy residential neighborhood.

Oh man, I mean, we can go back there. We can go back. I just, let me just get myself together. It took a minute. Oh man. We can go back there. We can go back. I just, let me just get myself together. It took a minute. Oh, man. This is where the surviving family relocated following the bombing of Osage, and where a number of its members still live. The houses were bought using money from court settlements compensating the parents of the children who were killed. Mike Africa Jr. called this place home for more than a decade. It's the longest he lived in any one place as a youngster. This shit looks scary to me now. Like traumatizing.

I never come back here. Never come back out. And he hasn't returned since leaving almost 20 years ago. This is hard for me to know Sage Avenue. Oof. When we pulled up the first time, Mike asked us to keep driving. But when we pull up again, Mike kind of shrinks into the corner of the car and sits staring, wide-eyed. Ah, man, a lot of bad stuff happened here.

Back in 1985, with John Africa now dead and the Move 9 still in prison, the family had to forge a way forward under very difficult circumstances. I mean, what happens to an organization when essentially the entire senior apparatus goes to prison or is killed? In the case of MOVE, the answer to that question is troubling. Yeah, you don't even realize how abusive it is until you step away from it.

Because I didn't really feel like or realize that some of that shit was abusive. Until I started thinking about it later. King Sessing was a revolving door for MOVE people after the bombing, as the group reckoned with the loss they had suffered. Mike says as many as 20 people lived here at any given time. Culturally, MOVE were pariahs, targets for abuse and criticism from all directions, and a deep sense of paranoia began to set in on the family. We had the whole place boarded up. Why? Because the police was after us.

And we didn't know if we was going to have to fight them. Boarded the place up, stayed inside. Only came out for food and water. For how long? Two years. See, I didn't live at Osage Avenue. That police part wasn't scary for me necessarily. The scary part was the stuff that happened inside because of how people was treated by, like, you know, the people.

Like the hierarchy of the remaining hierarchy? Yeah. They were just really punitive and, like, tough on the kids and all that? Yeah. Yeah. In the years after John Africa's killing, others would step up and assume control of the organization. Yeah, when you're a kid, you don't really see the adult issues.

It was probably, there was always, throughout the entire time of the organization, there were, you know, issues with people. Yeah, can we leave? Yeah, can we leave? Yeah, please. Mike resists precise details of exactly what happened in the King-Sessing house, at least on the record. But others have gone on the record. In 2021, a number of second generation members of the family, including Mike Africa Jr.'s own sister, went public with

allegations of abuse, ranging from physical intimidation, psychological control, and sexual abuse, forcing children as young as 13 years old into marriage and procreation. As far as we've been able to learn to date, there's been no formal investigation into these allegations. And no charges have been laid. Like any religious text, Mike says John Africa's guidelines are up for interpretation. The split that happened for me when I was an adult, the first one started in probably like 1999, 98, 98, 99. By 1998, Mike's 20 years old, and he's been focused on getting the Move 9 out of prison for a number of years. But he feels as though, for the folks that had assumed leadership of the organization,

getting their people out of prison was no longer their main concern. That divide only grew. And the second one was bigger, and it was started in 2017. Something like that. That bigger one was Mike's decision to use lawyers and official channels to free the Move 9. It was looked at as heresy by some within the family. They would say stuff like, in order to do that, you got to work with the government,

and we don't work with the government. Get a lawyer who is working with the system, and we don't fuck with lawyers. As far as Mike was concerned, his people were in prison, and all means needed to be exercised in order to secure their release. Full stop. But these differences in interpretation of John Africa's guidelines gave way to an era of family infighting and maneuvering for power.

In the fall of 2021, three years after their release from prison, In the fall of 2021, three years after their release from prison, Debbie and Mike Sr. would go public with their decision to leave the MOVE organization for good, in part to show support for their daughter. They both took Mike's legal surname, Davis. Mike Sr. even cut his dreadlocks. We'd been hoping to speak with Mike Sr. and Debbie about their relationship with the organization today. But in the end, they opted against it.

It's the history. It's them personally. They're trying to, in the words of my dad, move on. How do your parents feel about the new role that you're taking under now? Don't ask me about that. I'll have to tell you the truth, but I don't want to tell you. Tell them the truth. Nah, they ain't really happy with it all the way.

But, you know, they understand I'm a grown man, so they don't argue anymore. Would they be happier if you just let the whole thing die and you moved on? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I never asked them. I don't want to hear it. I'm scared to hear the answer. I mean, I respect them and I love them. They know that, but I ain't doing that. We done came too far to do that. We done went through too much to do that. We don't went through too much to do that. Mike recognizes the harm that came in the wake of John Africa's death. He suffered it too. In Mike's view, while it's true that others misused the teachings of the coordinator, he doesn't believe that should preclude him from carrying them on.

I'm a true believer in John Africa's teaching. I don't believe anything else is better than it. And I guess I could say it ain't my fault that other people didn't see it that way. It ain't my fault that they used it as a way to, like, control people because they know the value in it too. But they're not believers that it's supposed to help change the world. And I am.

After the allegations of abuse were made public, it only opened more questions about what might come next for the MOVE organization. And it's around this time that Mike gets a call. My family called me, my cousins and all of them, John Africa's nieces and nephews. They called me and they said, yo, man, take the leadership position, kick everybody the fuck out, and you lead it. And I said, nah, I can't just do that. And he said, yeah, he said, well, don't kick them out, just leave.

He said, just do it without them. And John Africa family told me to do that. So I said, all right. I asked Mike about the future of MOVE against all of this uncertainty. You know where the organization is headed in the future? Wherever I take it. Wherever I take it. Now I'm trying to think of a title for myself. I'm like, Mike Africa Jr., the minister of what? Nah, it's got to be something a little bit more regal than that, don't it?

Like, what's up? After some consideration, Mike lands on the griot. Like, saying the griot, it doesn't feel right, but I'm the fucking griot, man. I'm going to tell the stories. We Google it. The move griot. How do you spell it? G-I-R-O? G-R-I-O?

Ain't no T at the end? It's the T at the end? Oh, fuck that. I ain't doing that. Shit sound French. Is it African? The word isn't African, but the tradition is African. The tradition is African?

Yeah. The word isn't African, but the tradition is African. The tradition is African? Yeah. In West African tradition, the griot is a historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, or musician. The keeper of the family story. That's all I do is collect knowledge. I know more Moves stories than the Move members who lived them.

The one who passes the oral history between the generations. And that's no bullshit. See, because I would get the story from Phil, and then I would get the same story from Delbert, and then I'd get the same story from Chuck, and they never talked to each other about them.

So I knew all their vantage points. The Griot is the living archive of the people's tradition. God damn, this is me all the way. Sure. Hey, guys. What's up, Mike? How you doing?

Pretty good, bro. Pardon my lateness. I was downstairs watching a TV show with my kid, and, well, I fell asleep. It's now June 2022. Have I read it? Yeah, yeah. I read 11 pages of it. It's 257 pages, I read 11 pages of it. It's 257 pages. I read 11 pages of it.

Just days after a long-awaited independent report into what happened with the remains of the people killed in the MOVE bombing has been released. We've called up Mike to talk about it. I intended to read the entire thing. But when I started reading it,

there were descriptions of the kids that were too troublesome. Among other things, the investigators commissioned by the city of Philadelphia were tasked with discovering how and why remains believed by most experts to belong to a young girl fell into the bureaucratic void. The report was pretty damning. I started reading it at night. It was after work.

And while I'm reading it, the descriptions of the kids, of their remains actually um their faces their skulls um i i i started to see them that way and when i would try to remember what they looked like, I would only see the images of the descriptions in the report. And I started to lose the memory of what they looked like, so I didn't continue to read it. It felt very frightening.

I actually had to get pictures of them the way that i remember them if i didn't have those pictures i'm i don't know if i would have lost those images forever i don't i don't know but i'm very fortunate that i had those pictures so yeah i couldn't read the report any further. I'm sorry you have to go through this, bro. It's very tough. Yeah, thanks, bro. The release of the report does help to offer some clarity, to legitimize the fact that on many levels,

the bungled chain of custody was an institutional failure. But in another sense, the report itself is a continuation of the violence perpetrated on the family. A family that for the more than three decades since the bombing has existed not as fully human but as a case to be studied. A family that has existed under the microscope of the media, the city of Philadelphia, the justice system, and the public. Constantly made to relive the trauma of that bombing in an effort to legitimate what was done to them. Report after report after report. Study after study.

A citywide investigative commission., decades of media intrigue. Still, no city official has ever been held officially responsible for the bombing of the move home. We didn't do birthdays when we were kids. We didn't have birthdays. We didn't have parties and all that kind of stuff. have birthdays. We didn't have parties and all that kind of stuff. But recently, when all of this stuff came out, I was looking through some of the records of our history, and I found Tree's birth certificate. And that was the first time I ever knew that Tree and I shared the same birthday. I never knew that before. That tree and I shared the same birthday.

I never knew that before. I asked Mike about his lasting memory of tree today. And his answer kind of floored me. Her feet. She had nice feet. They were ashy. Her feet. Back home in Ethiopia with my family,

a person's feet are recognized as the holiest part of their body. A child kisses the foot of a grandmother in recognition of all she had to carry. The lowest part of our body is made royal. Yeah, all of our feet were ashy, but hers was ashy. You just put oil on them. Cooking oil, not even like the oil you get for the store, but the cooking oil. In the fall of 2022, the city of Philadelphia amended the manner of death for the 11 people inside of 6221 Osage Avenue on May 13, 1985, from accidental to, quote, homicidal violence. The city had now finally recognized, with precise language, what the family had always known.

In the case of the move bombing, according to the city of Philadelphia, it was murder. In the winter of 2022, just before Christmas, Mike Jr. and I arranged one final conversation. We talked about his family and laughed about my time in Philly. We talked about the fact Wilson Good is now the president of a mentorship program for the children of incarcerated parents. Then he told me he had some news that he hadn't yet broken to his family. some news that he hadn't yet broken to his family. Through her job at the telephone company, Louise, John Africa's big sister, Mike's great aunt, saved enough to move from the bottom to the black upper middle class in Copse Creek, where she bought a home, 6221 Osage Avenue.

Louise was only 4'11", but she was a powerhouse. Although not a civil rights leader, it was on the shoulders of women like her that movements became possible. And following John Africa's federal trial, she insisted on using her new status to help her little brother. You know, when he comes home from jail, the trial of the century, it's like, you know, don't go back down to this crazy house

down here in Palton where this shit is crazy. Come up to my house. So he's like, no, I'm going home. I'm going to Pearl Street. And she insisted that he don't. So he went to her house. And then after a while, she was like, listen, Vinny, you got to go. You're too wild for me, man. And then at that point, though, he was dug in. He said, I ain't leaving.

So in 1983, Louise left instead. And two years later, she watched as the city let her home on Osage Avenue burn to the ground, killing her brother, her son, and nine others. In the wake of the bombing, the city oversaw an effort led by Mayor Wilson Good to rebuild the 61 homes lost in the fire. But Mike says that Good made it very clear 6221 would never be returned to Louise, never entrusted into the care of the Move family again. Through eminent domain, the city took her house and they sent her a check for $60,000, which she rejected because she said she wanted her property back and she never cashed it.

And even though she never cashed it, the city still continued to send her water bills after May 13th. Louise Leapheart James died in December of 2019. She was 90 years old. And through the final years of her life, that house on Osage was never far out of mind. From her hospital bed, Mike says she would insist.

She wanted her house back. And Mike never forgot that. So on that call, ten days before Christmas, Mike told me that he had finally made good on that promise. He's begun the process of purchasing Louise's old home. Contemporary Philadelphia is a living eulogy to a very particular national story. Of American patronage, national sacrifice, and great power. Whether it be the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, or the more than 1,500 public sculptures that line the city today. But of those 1,500 sculptures, not a single one was dedicated to an African American until 2017.

until 2017. So, for the MOVE organization, for Mike Africa Jr., that home on Osage Avenue is their contribution to the city's growing archive of Black history. A monument to the greatest disaster the city had ever seen. Consecrated grounds.

A place to lament the dead. The legacy of the move story is all around us today. Whether in the incarcerated political prisoners still housed in American federal prisons, or in the militarization of the police, the connective tissue can also be found in the press today, in local coverage of crime. On this, it's worth noting that in 2020, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the city's paper of record, issued a public apology for its legacy of racist reporting. The MOVE story also reveals the public's need for perfect victims. There's no ignoring that in their own small way,

the MOVE organization predicted the modern world, from prisons and police abolition and climate change to the rise of veganism and healthy eating. Even dreadlocks have become a common feature of modern life. With MOVE, we're told they were loud and brash, that they defied rules, that they were unhygienic and smelled of garlic, that their children roamed the property naked, and that they screamed invective at neighbors from loudspeakers. And all of which was true. I mean, would I want to live beside neighbors like that? Likely not. But since when

does being a bad neighbor, or violating housing codes, call for summary death? codes, call for summary death. For MOVE, the violence visited upon them was not an aberration. It was a slow and gradual process of dehumanization, facilitated over many years, often just under a patina of civility and order. With their erratic behavior and unusual lifestyle, the unconventional hair and esoteric philosophy, Move members were easy targets. The group was illegible for most people. Even in the context of civil rights, most in the mainstream were more comfortable with a freedom fighter in a suit than they were one with dreads, no shirt, and a pair of Wrangler jeans. In the end, that dehumanization would work to justify atrocity, making it as though death arrived with a sense of karmic justice. So much so that even children might be considered

collateral damage. So over time, the group went from local curiosity to inconvenient radicals to existential threat, and eventually the subjects of a forgotten American tragedy. I think some of why MOVE's story has been so thoroughly forgotten is the fact the group cannot be de-radicalized. There is no process by which they can now be incorporated into a neat and tidy story of redemption and national healing. They were and remain entirely too radical. These were and are mothers, children, fathers,

grandparents, and community members who fell victim to the totalizing nature of state violence. Those who defied the one great red line that exists in activism by refusing the state demand for peaceful protest. They did not sacrifice their freedom. It was taken. They did not give their lives. Their lives were taken. Does that make them perfect?

Absolutely not. But what does perfection have to do with whether or not a person should live or should die? Or how they might be remembered? American history is riddled with radicals. The nation was literally founded by them. American history is riddled with radicals. The nation was literally founded by them. For me, the MOVE story is a reminder that changemakers are not created equally.

There are those who watch and those who engage in struggle. Those who reap the benefits of change and those who pay for it in flesh and in blood. Those who lose children and love and everything they've ever known so that we might one day know something different. As for whether or not it was all worth it, Mike Jr. told us that while he grieves all that was lost,

he believes it was necessary. That the price of change and ultimately the cost of liberation is often life itself. Mike has built this beautiful life, a loving home with Robin and their four children, the kind of life that so many of his MOVE family were never given the chance to realize for themselves. that so many of his MOVE family were never given the chance to realize for themselves. Katricia Tree Dotson Africa would have turned 53 years old this year,

just a year younger than my own mother. For Mike and I, though we're separated in age by two decades and have lived different lives in different countries, there are elements of our story that connect us. From the conditions of the neighborhoods we grew up in to the fact both of us know what it means to lose people to violence. On this, I wondered if Mike had ever suffered any guilt, as I have, from the fact he survived it all, while so many he loved weren't so lucky.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's there. How does that manifest for you? Yeah, I don't think about it, but it's... Yeah, it's like, you know, I have my favorite people. You know, there are certain people that probably... You know, Delisha specifically, like, she was a born leader. How come she didn't make it? Why couldn't it have been her?

Like, she would have been an amazing spokesperson to explain and talk about and be strong. And, yeah, I mean, it's in there. It ain't heavy, heavy, but it's, it's, it crossed my mind from time to time. Of the 11 people who were killed in the move home in 1985, there remain questions within the family about what became of some of their remains. To this day, there's some suspicion that there may be more yet to uncover. The kind of details that no report or investigation could satisfy. I would want to know why, what were they using them for, and who else do they have? Because it opens up

that whole question, who else do they have? That question still sits with me today. Who else do they have? And so I'm actively resisting the urge to end this series in a hopeful place. What little use is hope anyway, when it is justice and reparation that are required? And so I'll end instead with the man I opened this series with, W.E.B. Du Bois,

and what he called a hope not hopeless, but unhopeful. That's where I'm at. A hope not hopeless, but unhopeful. I love you. You've been listening to the Africa's vs. America from CBC Podcasts and Confluential Films. The show is written and produced by me, Matthew Amah, and Jessica Lindsay. Our story editor is Damon Fairless, and our producer is Alina Ghosh. Sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Emily Mathieu is our fact checker.

Our senior producer is Willow Smith. Consulting producers for Confluential are Tommy Oliver and Keith Giannette. Our art was designed by Yannick Lowry. Our cross-promo producer is Amanda Cox. Our video producer is Evan Agard. Special thanks to Lynn Washington Jr. and Walt Palmer. And Temple University City Archive. Thank you. are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager of audience. Arif Noorani is the director, and Leslie Merklinger is the executive director of CBC Podcasts.

Thanks for listening. On the move! On the move! On the move! On the move! On the move! On the move! Take Africa! Take Africa! Take Africa! Take Africa! On the move! Alicia Africa Netta Africa Little Phil Africa Lamarcia Africa Bernie Africa

Ramona Africa Rhonda Africa Teresa Africa Frank Africa Reagan Africa Conrad Africa Donna Africa John InstaCard Africa For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.