Ramona Africa: May 13, 1985 Remembered

Part two of a May, 2010 video-interview with Angola 3 News, Ramona Africa is the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 massacre of 11 members of the MOVE organization.

On May 13, 1985, a State Police helicopter dropped a C-4 bomb, illegally supplied by the FBI, on the roof of the MOVE Organization's house at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. The bomb started a fire that was allowed to burn, and eventually destroyed 61 homes, leaving 250 people homeless: the entire block of a middle-class black community.

The Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (The MOVE Commission), appointed by Mayor Wilson Goode, documented that when the occupants of the house tried to escape the fire, police shot at them, blocking their escape. In the end, six MOVE adults and five children died.

Ramona Africa and 13 year-old Birdie Africa were the only survivors, after successfully dodging the police gunfire.

The MOVE Commission concluded that the deaths of the five MOVE children "appeared to be unjustified homicides which should be investigated by a grand jury" (curiously the Commission did not similarly criticize the murder of the MOVE adults). However, two subsequent grand juries refused to press charges against any city or police official for murder or any other wrongdoing.

In contrast, Ramona Africa spent seven years in prison.

Recognizing the racial implications of the massacre, The MOVE Commission wrote that the day's many horrifying decisions, including "the use of high explosives, and in a 90 minute period, the firing of at least 10,000 rounds of ammunition at the house; to sanction the dropping of a bomb on an occupied row house; and to let a fire burn in a row house occupied by children, would not likely have been made had the MOVE house and its occupants been situated in a comparable white neighborhood."

To learn more, please read our full article, written to accompany this video, here:

http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2010/10/may-13-1985-and-legalization-of-murde...

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• Ramona Africa
• MOVE 9
• political prisoners
• Philadelphia
• Pennsylvania
• prisons
• police
• racism
• crime
• human rights
• activism

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Wilson "No" Goode. Why does Waco get so much attention, when this happen first?

[TTDCWebBrotha]

ASANTE (Thank You)