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Meeting MOVE

by M. A. Jamal

I first met MOVE the same way many of you did--through negative accounts in the newspapers--Is there any wonder that my first impressions of them would be negative? Who were these "nuts" who demonstrated at a zoo? Who dared protest the enslavement and exploitation of animals?

I could not believe that people would protest, and put themselves in danger--to "free animals from the prisons called zoos!"

Years later, while working at a black radio station in town, I heard about a battle between cops and MOVE people, in 1975. MOVE folks said cops killed one of their children while beating and trampling upon a MOVE mother and child, during a raid, based upon the claim that MOVE was "making too much noise." The cops responded that such a claim was bogus, because they had no birth certificate, nor death certificate to support it.

When I went to the house, and talked to that mother, Janine Africa, her face was broken in grief and torment. Her infant son, Life, was trampled into the dust by raging, armed, frenzied cops.

The more I covered them, the more I came to the firm conclusion that they weren't "nuts", but committed revolutionaries, who opposed this system with every breath.

Confrontations between MOVE folks and the cops continued, gaining in intensity, spurred by their demonstrations at city police stations and courthouses, protesting police brutality and judicial insanity.

The series of conflicts culminated in the August 8th, 1978 MOVE Confontation, when hundreds of cops, armed with weapons of war, proceeded by the federal government, laid siege to MOVE's home and headquarters in West Phllly. They attacked the building as if it was located in the village of My Lai, Vietnam, with automatic weapons, bulldozers, and water cannon. It was a miracle that MOVE folks came out alive, because the city tried to kill them all.

The same city would later put every survivor of the raid (all except those who denounced MOVE Founder, John Africa on trial for murder, convict them of a crime they knew they didn't commit, and sentence 9 MOVE men and women to 100 years each.

As a reporter, I sat through the railroad of a trial, seeing a train of injustice that piled up daily; cops lying with brazen abandon, and DA's manuevering for political advantage. To see the blantant assaults on the MOVE 9, their denial of the right to self-representation, their condemnation for remaining MOVE members, their frame-up on murder charges, when none of the women even faced weapons charges!

I had learned that they weren't "nuts"--just good, deeply committed men and women-9 men and women--sentenced to an eternity in hell as if trash cast on a garbage heap. My blood boiled. Something precious lived in the city as long as they did--the precious spirit of resistance.

As a reporter, I had been warned to leave them alone, to not interview them, and not to even mention the word "move" on the air.

As a man--as a human being--I couldn't do anything but--even if I got fired--no matter what.

It hardly made me popular with the police or the power structure, but I covered the MOVE organization from what was a unique perspective--as if they were actually people.

It was one of the most rewarding stories of my journalistic life. I would do it again, because it was the right thing to do.

Ona Move!

Mumia


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