August 8th—Today
Early morning.
A time of rest, quiet and repose.
On August 8th, 1978, only the early birds in search of worms were stirring.
Also, cops assembled, heavily armed.
They attacked the MOVE House in Powelton Village, West Philadelphia, dozens, then hundreds and perhaps thousands of shots poured into the home. How could we know the number? For before night fell, the building would be shattered, razed into the dark, wet earth.
Water cannons pumped hundreds of gallons into the house, a deliberate attempt to flush MOVE people from their own communal home.
When they emerged, to escape drowning and bullets shot into the dark basement, men, women and children arose from the murky waters to find themselves facing dozens of cops, fiendishly pointing rifles and pistols at them.
Instinctively, they raised their arms to show that they weren’t armed, to avoid being shot by the maddened coterie of cops.
Delbert Africa pulled himself out of a basement window, his arms raised above, his back and chest bare, only to be rifle-butted, slammed with a police helmet, and when he fell, pummeled, kicked repeatedly in his face and head. When he appeared in court for arraignment some hours later, his left eye looked more like a golf ball than an eyeball. Saliva ran down his chin, reflecting his broken jaw.
Almost all of the men were beaten, and what of the women?
They were driven to the banks of the Delaware River, where they heard cops arguing amongst themselves.
One cop said, “Let’s rape them and throw them into the water!”
They were rerouted, and driven to the nearby House of Correction, a county prison, to await trial.
What happened to them on August 8th, the hellistic rain of police gunfire, beatings, rape threats and incarceration, was nothing compared to what they faced in Philadelphia courtrooms, where they were denied their every right, including their alleged right to self-representation, beaten again when they refused to attend their own legal lynchings, and then, the lynchpin—convictions, and common sentences before Judge Edwin Malmed, of 30 to 100 years, for third-degree murder!
Malmed, during a phone call from me to the Frank Ford Show on WWDB-FM (where the judge was a guest) answered the question of who killed the cop, by saying, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Nine people. Nine men and women. Nine MOVE members—and 30 to 100 years!
Today, August 8th of 2017, marks 39 years in prison for MOVE members of which seven survive.
Merle and Phil Africa have returned to the Source, under what can only be called suspicious circumstances.
Another fact: none of the imprisoned MOVE sisters had weapons charges.
Eddie Africa was never convicted of any degree of murder! His charges? Attempted assault.
I kid you not.
MOVE members are in prison today because they were MOVE members. Period.
They are guilty of nothing—except resistance to a racist, brutal, corrupt system.
The same system that gave rise to mass incarceration on a scale that the world has never seen before.
Their sentence is an abomination.
Free Delbert, Eddie, Mike, Chuck, Janine, Janet and Debbie Africa!
—Prison Radio, July 19, 2017