MOVE: 50 Years A Cult Part II - Mumia Abu Jamal and Pam Africa

50 Years A Cult Part II: Mumia Abu Jamal

(Automated Prison Recording): You may start the conversation now.

MUMIA ABU JAMAL: Hello. How are you?

(Female receiving call) Mumia, how are you? Welcome.We are so excited. Thank you so much for your continued love for the people. Thank you for your commitment. We are with you. What can we take away in just 10 seconds as we MOVE from this room into our movements, into our families, into our lives? What takeaway can we take?

MUMIA ABU JAMAL:  Let me say this, that resistance works, that organizing works, that MOVEments work. And to quote John Africa, when you're committed to doing that which is right, the power of righteousness will never betray you. I thank you. I love you all.

Beth McNamara:
Hi. Welcome to part two of MOVE 50 years A Cult. Part one ended with an examination of a MOVE supporter who is much more well known than MOVE, a man named Mumia Abu Jamal. Over the last 30 years, you might have seen more Free Mumia signs in the hands of MOVE members than Free the MOVE 9 signs.
How does Mumia Abu Jamal fit into the MOVE story? I've had so many questions with regard to Mumia and tried to engage him directly via two letters, but got no response. Then I reached out to his lawyer and he came back saying Mumia was declining an interview. I have also reached out to key Mumia support organizations and individuals within those organizations and have gotten no response. 

The podcast has gotten a lot of material from different sources over the last two years.  One source did provide some old audio cassettes, and I found an interview all about Mumia's MOVE origin story.  It was like finding treasure. 

Pam Africa: Whatever you wanted to put on here. Let me know. You interviewin’ me.

Lori Allen: Oh, you want me to interview you? 

Pam Africa: Yes. 

Lori Allen: Okay. 

Beth McNamara:  It's Pam Africa  being interviewed by a loyal young supporter named Lori Allen. 

Lori Allen: Today is July 4, 199.  This is for the fourth issue of Network. 

Beth McNamara: Network is the self published newspaper of the Friends of MOVE chapter in Norfolk, Virginia that came out of the Free Mumia activists in Norfolk, Virginia, who had, of course, made contact with the chairwoman of the International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu Jamal, Pam, Lori. 

Two things to mention before you hear this interview. One, Pam, Lori's natural speech pattern includes many, many “you knows”. And because the interview is quite lengthy, I made a decision to remove the “you knows” as a narrative choice just for the sake of the listening ear.
Two, Bob and myself listened to this interview many times, making notes so that we could fact check and look for supporting information. And we found a lot. So throughout the interview, I'll pause and share what we found to be interesting and or related to what Pam is telling Lori Allen. Okay, let's roll tape. 

Lori: What I really, really wanted for this issue was...

Pam Africa: What about the victory at Norfolk? 

Lori: Well, we're going to have stuff with that. We're going to have everything but you have been working on this case and have been put in charge by the coordinator to put forth the defense for Mumia and raise the funds to get him free and the new trial. But you were also very personally involved with it and Mumia, and there's not a lot of people who have that personal reference with Mumia as a friend. Tell me about that. 

Pam: Yeah. Okay. Let me see. When I first met Mumia  it was just before the 78 confrontation. No, it was before the 1978 confrontation. Historically, when I first got involved with MOVE, I was just a neighbor down the street who seen the situation unfold on May 20, 1977. 

Beth McNamara: May 20, 1977, is guns on the porch when MOVE members dressed in fatigues combat boots and berets walk out onto their platform holding rifles. 

Pam Africa: You're not going to do this exactly where it's written and saying, is it? 

Lori: No, I'll format it. I'll take out all the uh's.

Pam Africa: Okay, then.   But when I started telling people about…what it was because I was political at that particular point, supportive of Councilman Lucian Blackwell  and Rizzo. 

Beth McNamara: Rizzo is Mayor Frank Rizzo, former Police Commissioner of Philadelphia, and to this day, the number one boogeyman in the MOVE narrative next to Mayor Wilson Goode. Of course, Bob and I are unable to find anything supporting that. Pam, formerly known as Jeanette Knighton, supported Rizzo in any way, so we're just not sure. 

Pam Africa: And MOVE was like an oddity during that time to me.
And when the situation happened on May 20, 177, for the first time, I'd actually heard what it was that MOVE was saying and saw for myself that people was really involved in MOVE. I started speaking out on what it was that I had seen, and I saw a difference in the newspaper. As a result, I was beaten a lot by the police, locked up and never charged. And one of the reporters that came to my aid was like, Mumia Abu Jamal. 

The rest of the reporters that would be, this is Lori (Pam is speaking to someone in the room).  The rest of the reporters that came around, they wanted a story, and they want to see where the bruises was. How many cops was it? Did I say something to provoke the cops? Stuff like that. Hold on a second.

When I met Mumia, he came around after one of the times that I was harassed and beaten by the police, telling what I had seen in a neighborhood. And he was really different from all the other reporters in the fact that he had a genuine concern for me and a concern for my children. At the point that when he would turn, I could tell the story of what had happened to me until I would look and see that microphone when I would see that microphone come on and I would automatically freeze up. Right. And he would sit there real patiently and wait for me and talk with me until I would actually be able to get some more information out.

And what he would do is, like, when I reheard the actual tape of what it was that I had put out, that it was said and it was amazing, it was like the whole story. And it sort of flowed because where I was stopped, he would add a question. He just went right over it and redid it. And you never thought that I couldn't handle and not only that, when he finished the interview and stuff, I mean, that he was really concerned about my kids. He would come back, he would check to see how we were doing.

00:07:59
Hold on 1 second.

Yeah. Hello? 

Lori. I'm here. 

Pam Africa: Yeah, so that was like, really the beginning of our friendship.

00:08:11
And then it wasn't that he was right up under me at that particular point. Pam says that at this point, Mumia is, quote, not up under her yet, unquote. That's a MOVE phrase indicating who is directing who in the MOVE relationship. And it typically indicates who the recruiter was and now the manager of the new recruit. I would see him, like, up at the platform doing interviews with different people and on the streets talking to elderly people around near the young and what was happening with MOVE.

00:08:49
Then one day, I was coming from a court case down at Curveball and I bumped into him and he was right at 16th of Market. A young man had been thrown through a plate glass window, victim of police brutality. And he was telling me that it was his brother who had been thrown through the plate glass window. And he was, like, doing a big interview about it. And it was a large demonstration.

00:09:17
Mumia was born Wesley Cook. His younger brother Billy Cook sold chotchkeys on the corner of 16th and Chestnut in Center City. Billy Cook is also the driver of the Volkswagen Beetle pulled over by Officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, the night Faulkner is shot. And to come to find out years later this was a friend of his by the name of “Poppy” who was, like, raised within their home.

Beth McNamara 
There’s a whole story that goes into this guy that was killed May 13, who people believe was the other rider in a car with Billy Cook. So yeah, I'll get back to that part, but just remember that part right there.  According to a May 23, 1985 obituary, “PoppY” is Kenneth Freeman, and it says he died of natural causes on May 14, 1985. It is a decade later when the Free Mumia organizers and legal team propose that Kenneth Freeman was in the Volkswagen with Billy Cook on December 1981 and that Kenneth Freeman is the actual shooter and responsible for the murder of Officer Faulkner, not Mumia Abu Jamal. MOVE had suggested that Freeman dying on May 14 was related to MOVE's deadly confrontation the day before and some kind of conspiracy.It never went further than that. 

Pam Africa: Let me see. Right after 1978, when Rizzo attacked MOVE Moy was coming by the house checking and seeing how we were doing there. At one point they had wrote a line, said that bazookas and machine guns and stuff, they said a gas man had told them that came into my house,and he observed on the table bazookas and machine guns and stuff like that. And the cops that went through my house raided and tore it all apart. And Mumia came when he had heard about that. And he really analyzed the whole story as being a lie. 

Beth McNamara: On January 2, 1979, a meter reader for Philadelphia Gas and Water goes out to 32 Seven Pearl Street. He reads the meter, but then also reports back what he saw inside, which were 13 adults and six or seven children in the apartment.

And that he observed a man cleaning a shotgun in the living room and saw the following: an automatic rifle hanging on the living room wall, a bazooka sticking out from behind the couch, and four .38 caliber revolvers, two automatic pistols and assorted ammunition on the dining room table. The meter reader is scared, so he doesn't report it for eleven days. When he does, police give him a lie detector and he passes. And so, police get a warrant. When they go out, they see a sign posted on the back porch of 3207n that reads, “the house that John Africa built”.
But police don't find any weapons at this point at this time, which is four months after the deadly first confrontation on August 8, 1978. Police have reason to believe that 3207 Pearl, rented to Jeanette Knighton, aka. Jeanette Patton, is the new headquarters for MOVE because the original one was demolished. 3207 is the apartment that Vincent Lee Part first rented when he moved to Powelton Village in 1970. It is the apartment where he wrote the Guidelines with Donald Glassey.

Pam Africa:  From a tip, that's how they came in and tore my house up. But what had happened, he just started coming by and checking and during the trial I would see him during the 1978 trial and he would like when you cue the radio and you would hear the truth about what was happening with MOVE, he would tell what MOVE was saying in the courtroom and what the police were saying. And when they banned MOVE from the courtroom and all, that didn't stop Mumia from seeing MOVE because what he did, he would go up to the prison. And that's how we got to spend a lot of time together because a lot of times, when I would go up to the prison because I was a member of the prisoner's rights organization, which I can go into the prison anytime to visit any inmate, and I would go up there a lot of times, and Mumia would be there as a journalist. 

Beth McNamara: The prisoners Rights Council that Pam is referencing as giving her extra visiting privileges at the jails and prisons is something that has come up in our research before, and we've only ever seen it in connection with known or underground MOVE members like Pam, Lori and the alleged MOVE cult lawyer Angela Martinez. 

Pam Africa: We would wind up spending hours up in Holmesburg and The House of Corrections. He was doing interviews and after a while, when he was leaving his job, he was up to prison every day. Sometimes he'd be early in the morning to late at night.

And he wasn't a MOVE member then, but he was like by the power of John Africa, the information that MOVE people had, just as I myself was, and we would be going back and forth up to the prison. And when The Coordinator.. then plus he would come over the house afterwards and I have a famous shrimp and rice dish I was making at that particular time, like fix dinner for him, and we would be talking about different things. And when our Coordinator, John Africa and the people was arrested in Rochester, New York, Mumia was one of the people who rode up with us to Rochester and to see what was going on there. 

Beth McNamara: The Coordinator, John Africa, is apprehended by ATF and police in Rochester. On May 13, 1981, Pam was indeed up there. There's a photo of her demonstrating outside the courthouse with a “Long live John Africa” shirt.

Pam Africa: He was a friend, he was a journalist, and we got to learn more and more about each other. We found out on the trip about his Panther days. In fact, that's when Ramona was I think… (Pam speaks to Ramona who is in the room bu not on the phone) ”Ramona was you around about two years then?”. Well, yeah, you came to 79 when that situation happened with The Coordinator. Was that ‘80 when they arrested him in Rochester?

Ramona Africa: ..it was in ‘81.

Pam Africa:  In 81, all of us had went up to Rochester, New York. Another thing that was amazing about Mumia is that when we was in front of City Hall, see, once he had found out the truth, there was no turning him around and his journalistic piece because he was a court reporter and he would finish his court reporting. And during lunchtime, he would come down in the evenings with us and shake the jug and raise funds and get on the microphone outside and tell people what it was that he knew. And a lot of his friends, his colleagues, was looking at him like, “you're out of your mind, risking your everything”. And but behind it they knew what he was doing was right, but it wasn't a right thing as far as the journalists and his fellow colleagues seen it. When he became the President of The Association of Black Journalists, one of the first things that he did was invite us to speak about the case. And right after that, that's when we all went to Rochester. In fact, he did an article on The Coordinator, two piece article that the Philadelphia Tribune paid him to do two pieces. No, he didn't, because he freelanced that.

In fact, you know what? We need to find them articles so you can reprint that. 

Lori Allen: That's what I was just about to say. 

Pam Africa: one he did on John…, you got the Mona? Oh, Mona got ‘em, nice job. Mona got everything, honey. 

Lori Allen: Okay. Can I get those faxed to me tomorrow night? 

Pam Africa: (Ra)Mona? She said can she get them faxed to her tomorrow night? Yeah. Take them to Susan. Yeah, we'll fax them from Susan's. 

Lori Allen: Okay. 

Pam Africa: Yeah. Then right after that, when The Coordinator came home, the pressure picked up, right. MOVE was found guilty, and The Coordinator wrote the judge's letter at that particular point. And Mumia was completely blown away by the judge's letter. You have a judge's letter, don't you? 

Lori Allen: Mmhmm,Yeah..

Pam Africa: Right at 78. 

Lori Allen: I think I've read it, like, maybe four times.

Pam Africa: When they found.. not the old judges letter, That was after they was convicted, because the day that they was convicted and the time was given, that's when Laverne and Louise read it outside City Hall. 

Beth McNamara: Louise and Laverne are the biological sisters of John Africa, aka. Vincent Lee Part, and they were MOVE members at this time. 

Pam Africa: The Coordinator had, like, picked up the pressure of exposing what was happening with MOVE.

And during this time, I think… (Ra)mona, you were the first one to go to jail then, wasn't you? When they started putting that pressure on us, how did you wind up in jail then? You was already in jail when all of us started going through when Theresa when they beat all of us up in City Hall, was you already in or you was out? Mona, was you in jail then? 

Ramona Africa: No.

Pam Africa: You wasn't in jail?

Ramona Africa: Yeah

Pam Africa: Where you was at? Up the house. 

Ramona Africa: Yeah.

Pam Africa: No, I'm not talking about December 3, because what I'm trying to do is bring her the story of yeah, because Theresa and Rhonda and them got beat up first, and Mumia covered that. Oh, I know what was happening. That was during a time that Bert, Carlos, and Dennis was on trial with Judge Shoyer and The Coordinator… because they kept trying to bring Burt down and bring MOVE people down and have them sitting in smoke filled cells and stuff, and they would keep them in there real late. And what else also was happening? 

(Pam speaking to Mo Africa in the room) What was that? The Stanley Cup was one or something.

Mo Africa: No

Pam Africa: )ne of the Philadelphia sports groups. The Stanley hockey was one, and it was the World Cup, and people from around the world was there. And The Coordinator had us going down City Hall putting out information. When people would come in and they would hear the information, and then they want to know what could they do? We sent them up to the courtroom from there.

They would still want to know what they could do. We sent them to the mayor, who was Rizzo at that time, and no.. Green was the Mayor then, and we sent them there, and we sent them over to the city manager director which was that bomb dropper Wilson Goode. Him. And it was just a lot of pressure. So what they had to do, they want to get rid of us. So first what they did, they locked, they arrested me and Abdul and some other people in front of City Hall. And then we got out, we came right back. All of us was right back down there. Then right after that we got back here, we started getting back, we was back out there. 

And Theresa (Brooks) Africa, who was killed May 13, Rhonda (Harris Ward) Africa was killed May 13, They was in the courtroom and when they got ready to leave out, the guards jumped them and beat them up. And then they locked them up. 

Lori Allen: Yeah, I heard about that one.

Pam: Yeah, Then this was all starting like around the end of November, going into the beginning of November. 

Lori Allen: Wasn't Rhonda pregnant?

Pam Africa: No, no. uh uh.

Lori Allen: I thought somebody was pregnant or they just repeatedly kicked her in. Her private part. 

Pam Africa: You're talking about earlier, you're talking about Bert (Alberta Wicker). I'm in 1981 now. 

Lori Allen: Okay, I'm sorry.

Pam Africa: And I'm saying Mumia was there covering that and it really fucked him up to see this kind of stuff happening and the reaction of politicians and the community on a whole. It was almost just like they had… Mumia was the only voice that was actually speaking out because they had ordered a blackout and all. No news media was supposed to cover us. The only person was covering us at that time was Mumia and we was taking some terrible beatings and all.

When they let Rhonda (Harris Ward), uh uh, Theresa (Brooks) back out of jail, we had started putting pressure on (Judge) Shoyer by like like wherever he be at when he got out off the train at suburban station, we would be there with our bullhorns. We'd never walk up on him because it wasn't (inaudible) but just exposing him pointing out that Kendall Shoyer, you know he's German, right? 

Beth McNamara: Nope! Kendall Schoyer is not German. We checked.

Pam Africa: aAnd we was telling people that had people spoke out on Hitler, 6 million Jews wouldn't be dead now. And we was going to expose this motherfucker for what he was doing to our family. 

Beth McNamara: And Pam Africa has just said that MOVE was following the Judge on his route home. And so I went to see if I could find any record of MOVE court hearings involving Judge Shoyer.  Bingo. 

Philadelphia Enquirer December 23, 1983 MOVE Members Convicted in ‘77 Incident. The story is recounting the seven week trial of three MOVE members charged with riot, conspiracy and weapons offenses and making terroristic threats back in May 1977. You know, “Guns On The Porch”. The trial is happening in 1981 because all three defendants were fugitives and apprehended with Vincent Lepart, aka John Africa on May 13, 1981 in Rochester, New York. 

The three MOVE members found guilty are Dennis Sims Africa, the youngest and least spoken about MOVE member. He's also the biological nephew of Vincent Lepart. 

Carlos Perez Africa and Alberta Wicker Africa. The judge in this case, Judge Schoyer. This December 23, 1981 story includes the mention of other legal action pending because of incidents involving MOVE sympathizers during the course of the trial. And I'll quote from the story.

“On November 16, three persons identified as MOVE sympathizers were arrested in the hall outside the Curveball courtroom when police said they attempted to grab Schoyer during a recess.” At this time, Judge Shoyer is 77 years old. 

Pam Africa: And Mumis was like, covering this every day on the air. And you know how the MOVE people was consistently going after Shoyer and putting out what was happening. He would tell what was going on in the trial. Then what had happened, they jumped us and they jumped me, Theresa(Brooks)Africa and Abdul, and they broke my leg and beat me up real bad. They beat Abdul up. Theresa Africa, her arm was actually pulled out the socket, you know what I mean? Dislocated yeah. 

Beth McNamara: Pam, who was going by Jeanette then, along with Abdul and Teresa Brooks, both MOVE members, were arrested on November 16. And this is reported in The Philadelphia Enquirer. It says that Judge Shoyer was in the hallway outside the courtroom where he was presiding over the trial of Alberta (Wicker), Carlos (Perez) and Dennis (Sims)when Jeanette, Abdul and Theresa began shouting profanities at the judge and then attempted to grab or strike Judge Schoyer courtroom. Sheriffs were able to subdue all three of them and get Shoyer safely to his chambers. Sheriffs were injured and the three MOVE members were injured. It says Pam was treated for a leg injury at a local hospital and that all three MOVE members refused to give their ages or addresses.

Pam Africa: And he [Mumia] covered that. In fact, that was the last story that Mumia covered, was the story of what had happened to me, because once I got out of jail, he came to the house, my leg was like, in a cast. And he did a story called Evolution of a Revolution, something like that. I got that story around here somewhere, too. I'm sitting there looking all homely with this little cast on my leg, but I was home with the cast on my leg when we found out that, what had happened with Mumia.

Beth McNamara: Pam is referring to December 1981, when Mumia is arrested for the shooting of Officer Faulkner and he is in the hospital. 

Pam Africa: The Coordinator had Laverne.. Rose. I mean, (Ra)Mona…(then speaks Ramona in the room)  and Mo, wasn't it? Mo was there too. 

Ramona Africa: Yeah.

Pam Africa: Mo too, and, was Theresa Africa there?, . 

Beth McNamara: There. Pam just said that The Coordinator, John Africa, sent them to go see Mumia at the hospital on December 1981. 

Pam Africa: (speaking to Ramona again) Was Theresa (Brooks) in jail? I think was Teresa still in jail? (speaking to Lori) Because I know they had pulled her arm out the socket and they had let me out because of the pressure behind them breaking my leg and stuff. But what had happened, they was actually getting rid of all the people who was putting out the information about what was going on with MOVE right then.  They had Mona in jail.

(speaking to Ramona) Was you in jail when I got there, Mona? Or you had just went home?... in 81 when my leg was broke? 

Ramona: Nah. 

Pam Africa To Ramona: You wasn't there then? (to Lori Allen) and I'll come tell you, we was like revolving. (Pam is chuckling with laughter)

Lori Allen: I know that y’all  had like hundreds of cases. 

Pam Africa: Yeah, We've been in jail together, 

Lori Allen (interjects):...20 people, and you guys had hundreds of cases. So I can't even imagine you guys trying to keep track of that. The system has like hundreds of people trying to do that, (little laugh) let alone you guys try to keep track of how many times you've been in prison. 

Pam Africa, Yeah, my leg was broke during that time. And like I said, that was the last story that he had did. But The Coordinator at that particular point had sent MOVE people down there to deal with Mumia going to the hospital in the midst of all them cops and stuff, and you know how they hate us and we've been there with him ever since. You know, I was on crutches when I was sent out to start the committee for my Mumia

What had happened, you know how when things happen, horrible sensational and all people come in, they all joined in and then you wonder what all these politicians who was politicking and try to misuse Mumia. 

And so we were sent in to set the pace for what was happening. We've been there ever since. In fact, I was going to The Coordinator had coordinated me to head the West Philadelphia committee in support of Mumia, which later on became the Concerned Family of Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. And then it became the International Concerned Family of Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. 

Beth McNamara: The Coordinator sends three MOVE members to see Mumia that night. That's an activity. I will also add that Mumia refuses medical treatment for hours at the hospital and then finally relents and has surgery to remove the bullet. Refusing medical treatment is straight out of the MOVE playbook. 

Pam Africa: But you know during that whole time, even when he was here in the county, like I said, I was a member of Prisoners Rights Council (front group for MOVE so they could get into prisons as not just citizen visitors) and other MOVE members and I was able to go in and spend a lot of time and he was there with MOVE men at that particular point. And for a person that was going to jail and was first faced with murder, ya know I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but being in jail with MOVE people and was an experience for him because I think Frank (James) was still there then when he first came through. (asking Ramona in the room) Who was in jail with him when he first came through? (back to Lori)Oh no, because first he was in the hospital, but at one point they brought the men and stuff back down and Mumi was there with them.

Beth McNamara: Remember in the episode The Coordinator, Ramona Johnson speaks so fondly about being locked up with other MOVE members. It's like being in MOVE headquarters but just in jail or in prison. 

Pam Africa: Yeah. (then asks Ramaon) Is that when they beat everybody up and took them back up? 

Ramona Africa: It was right before that.

Pam Africa: Oh, that's right. Yeah. Because just before, right on December 3. Yeah,  because Mumia was real fucked up. No, what had happened, he was covering the whole thing.

Pam Africa: Right here, Pam is remembering and talking about something very important and Ramona Africa is chiming in in the background. This is something that has not been looked at in the Mumia Abu Jamal timeline. December 3. Seven MOVE members who are witnesses in other MOVE trials are in Holmesburg Prison so that they're close to the Philadelphia courthouse. Five of these MOVE members are part of the MOVE nine, the ones serving their life sentences for the murder of Officer James Ramp. They've been up in the state prisons. They're now all together in Holmesburg and for some reason they're allowed to have a meeting in one cell. And when a guard walks by, one of the MOVE members gets his attention and then grabs the guard through the bars and takes his keys. Concerned this is an escape plan happening in real time. Guards have to enter into the cell to get the keys and reportedly the ten prisoners are armed with sharpened sticks, mop handles and bricks and have pulled their bunk mattresses as shields.  17 guards armed with night sticks, shields and garden hoses enter the eleven foot by seven foot cell to battle with ten prisoners, seven of them MOVE members. Everyone sustains some kind of injury. The prison superintendent tells a reporter that the MOVE inmates had planned the disturbance in an attempt from being transferred back to the state correctional institutions. By causing this melee, new charges would be brought in Philadelphia, therefore keeping them local instead of sending them back to state prison for their sentences related to the (James)Ramp murder. 

Remember, John Africa is The Coordinator. He is the one who gives you your activity, whether you're in prison, jail, the courthouse, MOVE headquarters with him at an outpost, it doesn't matter. You're a MOVE member, he's your leader. He gives you your activity, no questions asked. Mumia Abu Jamal goes up to Holmesburg Prison and to the House of Corrections to see MOVE members just days before Officer Faulkner is shot on December 9. This is what Pam is telling Lori. 

Lori Allen: Um, you said earlier this is uh,...uh, this has always just been kind of one of those things where everybody wonders exactly what Mumia's position is with MOVE. 

Pam Africa: Mmhmm.. 

Lori Allen: Well, you know people say…

Pam Africa interrupts: he came around much like everybody else.  Mumia came around to cover a stor,  and you wind up getting,  and got the truth and was trapped. That's what all of us was trapped by, the truth. And not only the truth that somebody was saying, but we was all experiencing it just as you, you're not experiencing on the same level that we experience it on, but you're seeing things that is really blowing your mind 

Lori: Mmhmmm 

Pam Africa: The extent that this government will go to and anybody that is seeking truth and want to be right, winds up gravitating to what it is that they see. Because our disbelief,.. I could not believe. I mean, it's not like I gave a damn about right or wrong because I was into smoking joint and partying and a lot of bullshit, really. You know what I mean? 

Lori Allen: Yeah.

Pam Africa:  I'm trying to explain that, not gave a damn about righteousness or anything. It was just that saw something there and I was a part of a miraculous miracle because theses people getting ready to kill MOVE. 

Lori Allen: Yeah, like we got into it because we went and bought this cool CD from a band we liked and there was a picture of Mumia's book in it and so we got curious and read it.

Pam Africa: Mhmmmm.

Lori Allen:...and then there was your phone number in the back of it, I'm sorry, in the back of the CD case.

And we've been hooked. You guys are more addictive than any drug out there. 

Pam Africa: Yeah, yeah. (then speaking to anyone in room at MOVE headquarters) Lori said we're more addictive than any drug out there. She said because they had a friend that played in this really cool band who had to CD with a picture of Mumia’s book.

Lori Allen:  it was. Rage Against the Machine.

Pam Africa: Oh, it was Rage against the machine. 

Beth McNamara: Rage against the Machine has put on benefit concerts and publicly spoken out in support of Mumia Abu Jamal since the mid to late 1990s. 

Pam Africa: You know what? Because the stories of how people got involved, that's an altogether book in itself. How did this one get involved? How the hell did Rage Against the Machine get in as involved as.. Now, I know how you all got involved. I know how Mona got [involved] but it's stories we might do a thing on “How did you get involved with MOVE?” (laughing)

Lori Allen: Well, actually, I'll just ask you this while I got you on the phone…

Pam Africa: The ones who got involved in the beginning when there was no examples like what we, because we all got examples to fall on, right? You got something to read that will bring you closer too0,  but the people who first met The Coordinator when there was no examples because they are the examples of what it is that The Coordinator can do like Bert (Alberta),  RIA (Sue Africa).

Lori: Mhmmmm

Pam: Del(bert) (Orr)...all them.

Lori: Yeah, Delbert was talking about that when I interviewed him. 

Pam: Yeah.

Lori: hHe was talking about how because his references specifically are Bert & RIA. 

Pam Africa: Yeah.

Lori Allen: We talked to him twice, and both times he had to bring them up. 

Pam Africa: Yeah!

Lori Allen: He brought it up in the letter, too. And he always says that he thanks The Coordinator for having that opportunity to work with them.

Pam Africa: Yeah!

Beth McNamara Just a note here. This is July 1999. Bert is Alberta and she's in charge of MOVE, but she's the secret leader and RIA is her second in command. And Alberta is in a full on custody battle with John Gilbride over their son Zachary.

Pam Africa: I know you feel a difference, like when you deal with Bert and RIA. 

Lori Allen: Well, I haven't met Bert. 

Pam Africa: You know when you speak to RIA? 

Lori Alleen: Oh, yeah. We call her, like Tony, you know how he doesn't call a lot? 

Pam Africa: Yeah. 

Lori Allen: I don't get to talk to RIA that much because anytime that we call Tony's on the phone, (lauging from Pam) so..

Pam Africa: What it is, he feel that closeness from The Coordinator. That's what all of us gravitate to..

Lori Allen: Exactly.

Pam Africa:…From Burton RIA, because The Coordinator put, he coordinated them years ago for this activity. 

Beth McNamara: This is July 1999. MOVE has publicly said that John Africa, the Coordinator, was killed by the government on May 13, 1985, in the confrontation 14 years earlier but here Pam is talking about him in the present tense. 

Pam Africa: And that's why when you talk with Del(bert) and you always hear them refer to Bert and RIA because that's how The Coordinator coordinated. Each of us have our own activities, and we all gravitate to Bert and Ria for information because they was closest to the Coordinator, and they have it to give to us.

Lori Allen: Well, before I even forget about this. Is Mumia considered a MOVE member, or is he considered a supporter? Or what did John Africa consider him? 

Pam Africa: He's a supporter.

Lori Allen: He's a supporter. 

Pam Africa: No, he's a very strong, committed supporter. 

Lori Allen: Hmm, okay, Bbecause a lot of people have asked that, and I haven't been able to give a straight answer because I really don't know. 

Pam Africa: Because his belief is the teachings of John Africa. His everything, as you see in his writing, right, where he get his strength, his commitment and all that and all comes through. Because it was no mistake that Mumia, you got to spend all that time up at the prison with MOVE members because he had never been to jail. But he was on the other side with MOVE members, seeing how MOVE members carried themselves and their commitment. He wanted to know, what is it that had them to the point that MOVE members were so committed. And this family. He wanted that.  Hewould actually go up to MOVE to the prisons to feel better in the evenings. His wife didn't have competition from another woman, she had competition from the teachings of John Africa, because when he got off from work, that's where he went (Lori laughs) to the prison. It was like, she said, it was a freaky thing to her, for lack of another word. She said, Here he is. Get up. And every time you turn “where are you at?”  I'm up to prison. All right. You covered a story. But this was going on for months. He would get up there. I mean, he had got to the point that he would get up early in the morning when he didn't have nothing to do on Saturdays or so or he had things because he had became unavailable for the people that he used to hang around with, smoke joint with, and all, shoot the shit with.

 It was like, damn man, you up to prison again. What the fuck is with you? This is how they was talking with him. What are you fucking obsessed with them people? And that's what it became and they couldn't understand it. 

Lori Allen: Well, what is mumia? 

Pam Africa: Understand that Mumia Abu Jamal who was always someplace else and this tape recorder and thing but what was happening in our little did we know because The Coordinator sees far into the future and he was being prepared for the activity that he went on then. It's no mistake, Mumia is where he's at. Bring attention to the situation of death row. Have nobody have ever brought attention to that kind of situation like Mumia and…that it comes from The Coordinator and he never let anybody forget it. And he had people that man, if you drop MOVE you will have all this support and that and that… never could do it. He never could do it. And years later people found out what it was.

Beth McNamara: Pam just tells Lori that Mumia had been prepped for the activity he is on now by The Coordinator. Mumia is on death row. 

Lori Allen: I hadn't really thought of that being an activity. I still don't see I'm still learning how to look at things from a different way. But um,...on top of exposing the industry for the prisons and death row, also his articles themselves have gotten that much more attention because of the circumstances of where he is. He's able to be even more vocal. 

Pam Africa: Yeah. 

Lori Allen: It was only everr heard really in Philadelphia. 

Pam Africa: Revolution and The coordinator, everybody, I'm not saying that he put him in jail.

Lori Allen: Oh, no no no. 

Pam Afria:  And all, you know, 

Beth McNamara: tThe former Jeanne Africa told us in episode seven that prison was a MOVE activity and Jeanne  herself had only left MOVE four months before Mumia is arrested for shooting Officer Faulkner.

Pam Africa:  What I'm saying is the fact that he's able to put out information the way that he puts out information and that he's able to attract the world, he'll tell you where it comes from. And each of us, I don't care what we on, each and every last one of us, our everyday living is an activity, activity for “life”. And when you deal with Mumia, that's his reference and that's what actually keeps him going.

Pam Africa” You know, he don’t, he tell you he don't want to die, but he's not afraid of it. 

Lori Allen: Right. 

Pam Africa: That activity that he's doing now, he don't want to be there, but he's there and he knows what it is and he understand why he's there. 

Beth McNamara: Mumia Abu Jamal is on death row waiting for an execution date. And the MOVE 9 have been in prison for 21 years.

Pam Africa: And then see MOVE people is on the activity because you know that they can come out there (prison) anytime they want. All you got to do is denounce MOVE, denounce John Africa. The examples are there. 

Lori Allen: Yeah, because there's other people who got out doing that. 

Pam Africa: Yeah, but look at the problems that they got. Each and every last one of them. So I got to get ready because I got to do an interview, not an interview, at 9pm I got to go on a conference call. 

Lori Allen: Okay, cause I got a..yeah, It's almost eight. 

Pam Africa: I haven't done any of the bathroom things or anything, and I'm sitting here twisting and turning. I'll talk to Mona when I call back because I needed to ask her a few things. 

Pam Africa: All right, then. 

Lori Allen: Okay, thank you. On A Move!

Pam Africa: On A Move!

Beth McNamara: MOVE gets Lori Allen and her husband Tony to relocate up to Philadelphia in the year 2000. They then encourage them to have a child and MOVE after the murder of ex MOVE member John Gilbride. Tony and Lori leave MOVE and become public whistleblowers by doing a major tell all story in the Philadelphia Enquirer in October 2004. And then Tony sets up his blog sharing what he knows about both MOVE Mumia and the circumstances leading up to the murder of John Gilbride.

Tony's blog was crucial in helping the podcast understand MOVE, and it led us to the John Gilbride murder story. Examining John Gilbride's 2002 murder was our entry point to going deeper into MOVE and uncovering sources and documents that exposed allegations of child abuse, domestic abuse, trafficking, medical neglect, denial of education, and other crimes. Going deep into MOVE leads to Mumia Abu Jamal, and then it all circles back to John Gilbride. John Gilbride was a MOVE member when the Free Mumia effort was given to Pam Africa as her main activity by leader Alberta Africa, John's wife and then the mother of his child, Zachary. John was privy to all of the inside information on the Mumia efforts.

John knew Mumia and Mumia knew him as a defector who was not willing to back down about his son. John was a liability to MOVE and the Free Mumia “movement”, which the former Rain explained in part one, is a business. 

John Gilbride knew enough inside information that it is quite possible that the harassment campaign waged against him and his family was more than just about the custody case. The global political and financial support from Mumia was weaponized against John Gilbride from 1998 through 2002 and beyond. Possibly it was to intimidate John, to not even think about being a whistleblower like Donald Glassey or like Tony Allen and Kevin Price would eventually become.

11:30 p.m. On Thursday, September 26, 2000 and 234 year old John Gilbride pulls his 1985 Ford Crown Victoria into a parking spot in front of his apartment at Ryan's Run in Mapleshade, New Jersey. Someone approaches the driver's side of John's car. The person or people shoot John Gilbride at least four times. It is a bullet to the head that kills 34 year old John Gilbride.

Jack Gilbride (John’s father): When I told my wife, she screamed you wouldn't believe, and it just fell to the floor and cried her eyes out. Here I go. If they tell you the biggest pain you feel in hell is the absence of presence of God, then this is the worst grieving you'll ever have. Short of that. 

Alicia Gilbride (John’s sister): This single event destroyed a family of five..

Beth McNamara: 34 year old John Gilbride spent half of his life in MOVE or dealing with MOVE. At the end of his life, he was fighting to get his only son, john Zachary Gilbride, out of MOVE. And so John's murder and the impact on his family and his son Zachary is yet another tragic result of MOVE. This podcast investigation is over 20 hours, exposing the strategy of John Africa, the coordinator, the leader of the MOVE cult, and the tally of allegations is this incarcerated adults totaling more than 350 years in prison, broken families, dead children, dead adults, destroyed homes, neglected and abused children, destroyed lives, fraud, terror, abuse, lies. All for what? Was it for the whim or perverse amusement of a power hungry individual who might fit the description of a sociopath. And then this individual is succeeded by his closest followers to carry on with the alleged abuse, control and crimes. 

Rain Africa: It is abusive. Physically, mentally, sexually. You feel so trapped and alone, and you feel like there's no way out. 

Pixie Africa (Pam’s youngest daughter): I felt like I was just born to be tortured. 

Whitt Africa (sister of Mike Africa Jr.): There's things that was happening to us that we didn't even realize was a crime. 

Pixie Africa: Why the fuck didn't anyone help us and intervene? 

Beth McNamara: The last name, Africa, what does that mean to you?

Josh Africa (son of Mo and Mary): To me is a name that I wish I never had. 

Mario Hardy (Africa): The Philadelphia police, the Philadelphia media, Curveball, everybody has been had. You've all been played. MOVE is alive. All of this is about money.

Beth McNamara: So many people have brought up money. Was this all about money? Is this all about money now? In March 2019, Bob was a MOVE and Mumia supporter and wanted me to do a podcast about them. As revolutionaries victimized by the government, neither of us could have expected what we found.

And we made this podcast so that you could hear their stories and so that those in power could hear their stories. 

Rain: We need the truth to be out there, and people need to be held accountable, and people need to understand what MOVE is. We're doing this as a cautionary tale because obviously people have fallen for it for the past 50 years. No one else needs to fall and get trapped in the Venus fly trap of the MOVE organization.

Beth McNamara: 
You have been listening to Murder at Ryan's Run. This is the end of 2022, and for now, the end of season two of the podcast. As Bob and myself shift gears but continue to research and investigate, I promise we're not done by a long shot, and you will hear from us either here with an update or in another format. Thank you to everyone who participated in the podcast. Your generosity and bravery fuels the intentions of our storytelling.

Big shout out to the reporters at the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Courier Post specifically Murray Dubin, Mike Leary, Kitty Caparella and most importantly, Jason Narc eternal gratitude for the work of Michael and Randy Boyette. For their book Let It Burn. 

And I want to thank you for being a listener. The messages and emails you've sent mean so much. Thank you.

Check us out on social media for photos and bonus content. If you have any information related to our ongoing investigation into the 50 year history of MOVE, please reach out, email murder at ryan's run@gmail.com or message us on social media. This episode was reported, written, edited, hosted and executive produced by Me Beth McNamara, additional archival research and executive producing by RoBeth Helms. Be sure to follow the podcast and if you are finding it informative and interesting, please share it with friends.