The MOVE Family Compilation (1978-2020)
Speech · Black Liberation · June 13, 2025 · 01:52
Summary
This archival compilation episode features recordings of MOVE members and supporters from 1978 to 2020. It begins with a 1978 clip from the Powelton Village siege, where a member passionately refutes Mayor Rizzo's dehumanizing rhetoric, defending MOVE as a healthy, peaceful organization. The episode later includes a 1997 speech by Ramona Africa on housing and human rights in San Francisco, a 2019 interview with Delbert Africa from prison, a 2018 conversation with Debbie Africa and her son Mike Jr. shortly after her release, a 2020 Black History Month discussion with Delbert and Janine Africa, and a 2020 press conference addressing Delbert Africa's death due to medical neglect in prison. The compilation highlights MOVE's decades-long resistance to state violence and the broader struggle against the prison-industrial complex.
Transcript
Speaker 1: Murdering somebody, why look at the person that's being murdered? Rizzo is saying the MOVE organization has the right to die. We don't have the right to live. We're telling Rizzo, if anytime that you got a system that has theft under its feet, that has rape under its feet, that's turning a whole fucking globe up and down, then you got a problem. And what the MOVE organization is saying is we're talking about eliminating that problem. And anytime that you allow Rizzo or this system to tell you that we can't put out information given to us by John Effort to clear up this situation, then he ain't talking about being raped. Because what MOVE is saying, anytime you got a peaceful people like this organization and you have Rizzo talking about... We ain't healthy. We got health hazards in here. That's a goddamn lie because we had people in this organization during the confrontation from May 20th that had babies in this organization, healthy babies, strong babies. And Rizzo's trying to tell the people that we sick, that we unhealthy. He trying to win the opinion of the people so he can come in here and kill us. And people be saying, yeah, that's right. Move needed to be killed because they was diseased. Move needed to be killed because they ain't take a bath, which is a goddamn lie, because it don't matter how you look, how you dress, because if you write and you talk about being clean, your appearance don't matter. Because you saying you got Rizzo that wears a Brooke Brothers suit, all kinds of nice lines, nice patent leather shoes, but I'm saying he's the nastiest motherfucker on the face of this earth. You ain't got to have on no clean clothes to be clean. What Move is saying is anytime that you will allow a man to sit there and lie to you and bezel from you because he's all dressed up and all fashionable, then you're making a big mistake. I'm saying people will look at us because our hair is uncombed and because we dress like this, they'll turn the fuck off. They don't want to live next to us, but they'll turn the fuck around and live right next to a motherfucker like Rizzo. I've got five children and three grandchildren. How does it feel to have your children in