Wednesday, June 30, 2021

ENTRY POINT: Age 14

 I started writing this piece by attempting to write about what MOVE’s beliefs actually are, because what you find out after a decade as a close supporter is miles away from what MOVE tells the general public. However, while writing I was amazed that I’d ever come to believe many of these things in the first place. My energy shifted into exploring the process that led me from being a 14-year-old high school freshman, anarchist, atheist, punk rock teenager to being a twenty-year-old who believed that John Africa was God. Before I go into detail about what MOVE actually believes, which I plan to do soon, I’ll explore the events that led me to become a true believer. I think this is important because this is part of the same pattern that leads people into cults and other authoritarian groups every day. 

I first encountered MOVE through the writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal. I was fourteen and picked up a copy of “Live from Death Row” at a pamphlet table at a punk show. The way that Mumia wrote about MOVE greatly appealed to me. Their holistic worldview united my concerns around environmentalism, racial justice, animal rights, police brutality, and class issues. Within a few weeks, I sent money to the MOVE PO Box in Philadelphia and a few weeks later I had a copy of “25 Years on a MOVE”, a “Free the MOVE 9” button, and a “Welcome to Philadelphia” t-shirt. 

My hometown happened to have a very active chapter of MOVE supporters and it didn’t take long for me to become involved with them. In the beginning, MOVE was just one of many groups I supported. I volunteered with animal rights groups, did support work for the Zapatistas, served the homeless with Food Not Bombs, and did MOVE and Mumia support work. Soon I came to see MOVE as encompassing all of those other causes and therefore working for MOVE was primary as I viewed doing MOVE support work as the union of all of those struggles. 

In the beginning, I was uncomfortable with some aspects of MOVE, but there seemed to be so many redeeming qualities that I was willing to push past those feelings. I can specifically remember a moment thinking “this kinda feels like a cult” but I ignored the thought because the causes we were working on seemed too important. In the beginning, most of my support for MOVE was political. I was working to free the MOVE 9, but I had not adopted MOVE’s belief system. However, the more I was around close supporters of MOVE the more I started to feel comfortable with some of the beliefs.

As a rebellious teenager, I was looking for alternatives to a mainstream suburban lifestyle. I was open to a lot of experimental ideas and the idea of a predominantly Black group of people living a communal Thoreauvian lifestyle held a great deal of sway. Some of MOVE’s practices felt fairly easy to adopt. I was already a vegetarian so beginning to incorporate large quantities of raw fruits and vegetables into my diet didn’t feel like a big stretch. As I adopted some of MOVE’s ways I received a great deal of encouragement which led me to continue moving in this direction. Soon, by the time I was 15, a great deal of my diet was made up of the raw sweet potatoes, spinach, raw garlic, and other raw foods that encompass the diet that MOVE advertises (this is not actually how most MOVE members really eat, but that’s a topic for another blog post). 

Another element of MOVE that was fairly easy to adopt was vigorous physical exercise. I was already a runner and the intense physical feats that MOVE reported their members accomplishing were appealing to me. I began to dramatically increase my physical workouts and received a great deal of positive feedback for doing so. On their own both of these things, vigorous exercise and eating lots of raw vegetables, have tremendous benefits, and MOVE certainly isn’t the only group who advocates these activities. However, as I came closer into the circle of MOVE’s orbit these practices began to take on a new function. If this had not happened I would likely have simply benefitted from my contact with MOVE without getting too close. 

That’s one reason that writing about this can be tricky; 99% of the people who encounter MOVE never get pulled in so close that they begin to see the other side of MOVE, and as a result, they generally eventually move on, but with positive memories and associations. However, when I was 16 I ended up in a romantic relationship with a close MOVE supporter six years my senior who had much closer personal relationships with MOVE’s leadership. Entering into that relationship put me in regular contact with this leadership. It wasn’t long before I was calling MOVE headquarters to talk to Sue Africa (the real leaders of MOVE are Sue and Alberta Africa) once or twice a week and to get advice on nearly every aspect of my life. 

If you do not know that Alberta Africa is the leader of MOVE and you do not refer to Sue as Ria, then you were never truly close to the real MOVE. Like all cults, there are intentional layers in order to contain information and access to the inner workings of MOVE.  Because I was very close to MOVE I was taught to call Sue, Ria, and to call Alberta, Bert. It was immediately clear that they gave firm instructions to everyone else in the group, including Pam and Ramona, and that their directions were beyond questioning. Sue/Ria and Bert were to be consulted about everything. At the time that I began receiving counsel from Sue/Ria, I was 16 and she was 47 (two years older than my mom). Ria intentionally took on a maternal role in my life that was designed to replace the relationship I had with my own mother (this did not work, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on her part). 

As one passes from the outside to the inside of a cult it’s common to be pulled in with the tactic of love bombing. My first year of conversations with Ria were filled with her praising and encouraging me in over-the-top ways that made me feel as though I was special and had a potential that other MOVE supporters didn’t have. As a teenager who was struggling to find purpose and a counterculture to belong to this was intoxicating. Based on the way that MOVE had been portrayed to me they had become my revolutionary heroes and feeling so accepted by them was important to me. 

A great deal of the love-bombing that I received was focused on the organizing I was doing around the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE 9, the raw food diet I was adopting, and my intense exercise regimen. As these practices became more extreme I was given more encouragement from MOVE but also felt more alienated from my peers. Many cults use extreme exercise as a recruitment tactic. This can be a bit tricky to talk about because obviously, it’s healthy to exercise. However, the function that intense physical exercise serves within cults is to dramatically elevate endorphin levels so that the new recruit is essentially high from their extreme routine. The tactics cults use to shape recruits are very similar to tactics used by the military in boot camp and for much the same purpose. Another common tactic is an encouragement of sleep deprivation (which is also used as a control mechanism deeper within MOVE and in the military) or the encouragement of ritualized drug use. 

By my senior year of high school I was often running 2.5 miles to school in the morning, running home in the afternoon, and going on another 5-mile run (sometimes a 10-mile run) that same afternoon. I was consistently doing 500 push-ups, 50 pull-ups, and 250 sit-ups a day. I was in the best shape of my life and I felt great. I was also completely single-focused. With this single focus and the encouragement, I was receiving from the group I began to associate what I was accomplishing with the group itself. I was told, “you were weak when we first met you two years ago, and look how strong you are now.” I was certainly accomplishing things physically that I couldn’t do before and this felt like a credit to the belief system of MOVE. 

As my involvement with MOVE intensified so did this feedback loop. I increasingly identified with the belief system of the group as it already seemed to be working to improve my life. The advice that I was receiving from Ria, and other MOVE members, was no longer simply pertaining to physical health and politics, but now extended to psychology and every other domain of daily life. Much of MOVE’s belief is circular and slowly builds a series of thought-stopping platitudes into the consciousness of the initiate. In the next few days, I’ll spend many pages explaining what these actual thought-stopping beliefs are but for the sake of digestibility, I’m going to keep this post focused on how they function. 

As you move farther into MOVE you hear a lot about “doing your work” and “trusting John Africa '', or “trusting Momma” (Momma is the way that MOVE refers to Mother Nature). All of these phrases are saying the same thing, which is that you should stop thinking for yourself and fully trust in MOVE’s belief system. The major problem is that you are also told that you are so distorted from “being raised in the system” (the system from MOVE’s perspective is anything outside of MOVE. The Black Panther Party is just as much a part of the system as the Republican Party) that you cannot properly understand MOVE’s belief. This creates a double bind where the only choice is to trust what you are being told by MOVE’s leadership, or leave the group. At that point, I was in too deep and had invested way too much of my own emotional energy into the group to just leave. 

Once you’ve accepted that you can’t trust your own thought process as a result of “systematic training” then you’re ripe to be manipulated in numerous ways. One thing that’s tricky about this phase is that there are some immediate positive-feeling results that come from this submission of personal autonomy. Most religious traditions have practices aimed at stopping or stilling thought in order to be receptive to the divine. Hinduism has the Advaita Vedanta tradition, and Zen Buddhism and many other types of Buddhism have similar practices. Christianity even has apophatic traditions that are well described by mystics such as Meister Eckhart. However, these religious traditions also have other practices which are designed to ground the practitioner and to keep them on a balanced path. 

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t any abuse within these faiths, but because they’ve been tested for thousands of years they tend to produce more stable results than cults such as MOVE. Within MOVE, members and close supporters are taught that all of their thoughts come from “the system” and therefore they need to look to John Africa for guidance. MOVE teaches that John Africa is the only person who is without systematic training and is, therefore, the only person who knows the truth. However, John Africa died in the fire on Osage Ave. on 5/13/1985. Ria and Alberta Africa were the closest to John Africa (at least according to them), so following their advice is the best option (again, according to them). 

An interesting thing happens when you give up your own personal autonomy and submit your will to something that feels more powerful than yourself. In the beginning, you feel absolutely amazing. The effect of believing that you’re part of a small group that has a directive to save the world is intoxicating. This belief also results in placebo-like effects. As I went through this process I gained confidence and was braver and more disciplined than I’d ever been. My life felt so filled with purpose that I was motivated and full of energy all the time. This placebo effect doesn’t last forever though, and as the cognitive dissonance builds it gets harder to pretend that things are okay. 

As I was pulled further into MOVE the love-bombing started to slow down and eventually MOVE’s leadership said far more to make me question myself than to build me up. This change occurs slowly and when it happened to me I worked even harder to try to regain their approval. As an initiate, my potential and strength were emphasized, but after some years around MOVE, most of the feedback I received was critical. Around the time that the love bombing stops (other than when they need to pull you back in) another jarring thing happens; they begin to speak disparagingly about physical exercise.  

It’s not as though they tell you that exercise is bad, but they always state that it’s not as important as “the mental work”. There is a constant insinuation that those in MOVE who are just exercising, eating raw food, and doing political organizing are not doing the real work and should be looked down upon. The real work, according to Sue and Alberta, is the mental work, which is essentially to submit your entire mind to John Africa. This is confusing for many reasons, not least of which is that it’s difficult to submit your mind to a dead man. However, in MOVE’s belief, John Africa is not just the man who founded MOVE but is also the force of the natural world itself. In MOVE’s view, John Africa and God are one and the same. 

MOVE teaches that the mental work is primary, and if people are doing their mental work then everything else falls into place. They believe that the mental work will protect them from illness or any other problems, even if they’re doing nothing else to stay healthy. As a result of this teaching MOVE’s leader, Alberta Africa, has eaten a diet for decades that is less healthy than a standard American diet, barely exercises, and wonders why she has so many health problems. Despite poor results after decades of practicing “the mental work,” Ria and Alberta continue to teach that it is the only way. 

As MOVE recruits get closer to the inner circle they typically stop most of the vigorous exercise they were so motivated to do as they were recruited in. Now, instead of being applauded an initiate is discouraged from exercising because they aren’t doing the real work. As a result, they no longer receive the positive psychological effects of exercise, and on top of that, the love-bombing stops. At that point, which for me took four or five years to reach, MOVE provides diminishing returns. The problem is that by the time most people reach that point they’re already hooked on the emotional roller coaster and the thrill-seeking chaos of life inside MOVE. Their ability to reason has already been compromised. The sunk cost fallacy comes into play here because so much has been invested that many double down on their commitment so that it doesn’t seem like the work that’s already put in has been pointless. At this point, I had also formed close personal relationships with MOVE members that I could not imagine leaving behind. I had invested my entire world into MOVE and it took me many years to disentangle my mind, and many years after that to disentangle other aspects of my life. 

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Why I'm Writing

 It may seem strange that I’ve started a blog called “Leaving MOVE” when I haven’t had anything to do with MOVE publicly in two years, and I left MOVE intellectually in 2007. I understand how this may come off and I’ve seen it play out before. However, once Beth McNamara contacted me about the podcast regarding the murder of John Gilbride I wasn’t able to get John out of my head. Thinking about that murder and the events that led up to it caused me to go back and reread letters I had written with the MOVE 9 at the time. As I read those letters I also began reexamining other documents and soon enough I was seeing the entire history of MOVE in a new light. 

The primary reason I’m writing at this point is that I believe that the Gilbride family has been gravely wronged and deserves justice. I do not know who murdered John Gilbride, but I know for a fact that Alberta is directly responsible for a campaign of psychological torture that made John’s last years a living hell and continued to torment the Gilbride family long after. I know this with certainty because I took part in that campaign at the explicit direction of Alberta, and for that I am deeply regretful. Though nearly 19 years have passed I still believe that those events are worthy of a great deal of reflection. Even if one believed that MOVE is a largely benevolent force (I do not) then this campaign of terror against John and his family would be enough on its own to call that legacy into question. 

The secondary reason that I’m writing is that the murder of John Gilbride fits into a pattern within MOVE that stretches back to its very foundation in 1972. MOVE’s history is long and complex, and laying out these patterns will take some time. In my past year of reexamining MOVE I have happened upon some original documents and other information that I’ll be commenting on here. This is a long project and there is some groundwork that needs to be laid before I can jump into the project of revisiting the history of MOVE. 

Another reason I decided to start writing about my experience as a close MOVE supporter of two decades is because first-person accounts of people who left cults were very helpful to me when I was working to intellectually extricate myself in 2007. Until now the love that I had, and still have, for many in MOVE was enough to keep me from reflecting on my time in MOVE (that was coupled with the threat of ad-hominem attack and potential physical violence). However, at a certain point I realized that until I worked through some of these things publicly I would always be bothered by what I left unsaid. I hope that my words here may be helpful to others who are trying to distance themselves from similar groups or situations of undue influence. 

I also hope that these reflections will help to provide a counterpoint to the recent take on MOVE by many media outlets, which has been unquestioningly favorable. I believe that portraying MOVE as an activist group or radical organization is dangerous because MOVE is a destructive cult, and until they are viewed through this lens they will continue to refuse to answer any critical questions, control the narrative in all media, intimidate critics and silence their victims.  We must all stop letting MOVE talk in circles and make a circus out of very serious issues within MOVE and communities that MOVE claims to support and represent. 

The "Murder at Ryan's Run" Podcast


  • The following comments are my opinions. I am not making any claims or allegations against any named individuals. I am simply explaining my own thought process. 

Here’s some background on why I chose to participate in the podcast, “Murder at Ryan's Run”. Some of this may not fully make sense until you hear the podcast. :

I’ve tried getting the following things onto paper numerous times and it has proven difficult. There are so many complicated ideas that I need to express, and the people that I’m writing this for have very different levels of background knowledge. I have strong emotions about everything I’m writing about, and I realize that what I’m saying here will affect some peoples’ lives to a great degree. These topics could easily take me a book to cover, so please forgive me if I paint in broad brush strokes and skip over some of the details. Anything that I don’t cover here will very likely be covered in detail on the podcast. 

I’m writing this letter to explain why I have chosen to participate in the podcast “Murder at Ryan's Run” about the 2002 murder of John Gilbride in Maple Shade, NJ. I’m also writing to explain how I’ve come to some of the conclusions that I have, as well as to explain how I became so deeply involved in all of this in the first place. Some of you may not be aware of my involvement with the MOVE Organization or that the focus of my life in my late teens and much of my twenties was dedicated to supporting MOVE. Those of you who are aware of this may be shocked or feel betrayed by some of the conclusions I have come to, conclusions which I discuss on the podcast. I can understand feeling that way, I only ask that you please continue reading and try to understand my perspective. 

I first encountered the MOVE Organization through the writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1997. I was fourteen years old and had become obsessed with radical politics and social justice through my hometown punk rock scene. When I encountered MOVE in Mumia’s book “Live from Death Row” I was completely taken by their story. I was angered by what I read about the 1985 bombing and the imprisonment of the MOVE 9 in 1978. I wanted to do what I could to fight for justice. Coincidentally my hometown had one of the most active supporter chapters for MOVE. I became involved. 

By 1999 I started making trips up to Philadelphia for demonstrations. That same year I became romantically involved with a MOVE supporter six years my senior. At that point I was already in far over my head. The next year I began visiting with the MOVE 9 prisoners who I had already been writing with for a few years. In 2001 my relationship with the older MOVE supporter came to a dramatic end. This was two months before I was to graduate high school. I was heartbroken and confused. By then I had already been seeking regular telephone advice from one of the highest-ranking MOVE members, Sue Africa, for two years. When my relationship ended Sue suggested that maybe I should move up to Philly, just for the summer. I could staff the office of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia and spend the summer hanging out with other MOVE members and supporters. 

I graduated from high school in early June of 2001, turned 18 two weeks later, and I was driving up to Philly three days after that. I was passionate about the organizing I was doing and I was having the time of my life. Most of my waking hours were spent organizing for justice for Mumia and the MOVE 9. That summer was like a dream. I was a young man looking for a war, and I found one that felt just. I believed in everything I was doing 100% and there was a kind of ecstasy in working so hard for something I believed in that deeply. 

By then I was not just sympathetic to MOVE, I was completely identified. I spent most of my time with MOVE members or supporters and I was enjoying it. It only seemed logical to extend my stay beyond the summer. Soon I was calling the Philadelphia area my home. Meanwhile, nearly the entire time I had been developing an interest in MOVE, a crisis had been brewing below the surface. Around the same time I was gaining an interest in MOVE a man named John Gilbride was trying to find a way out. 

John grew up in South Jersey. He became obsessed with MOVE when he was 17, on the day that they were bombed by the city of Philadelphia, May 13th, 1985. The atrocity that he witnessed on the news; 6 adults and 5 children dead, and 62 homes burned to the ground, shocked him and made him question his own worldview. He could see the smoke across the Delaware River and he needed to take action. He began writing letters to the MOVE prisoners and attending court dates. It didn’t take too long before he began making trips to the prisons to visit incarcerated members. 

Not long after that John began a romantic relationship with Alberta Africa who was twenty years older. John was a Temple Student, around 20 years old, and Alberta was 40 and recently released from prison. Alberta was also the widow of MOVE’s founder, John Africa, and was the new de-facto leader of MOVE (MOVE claims to not believe in leaders, but at least until recently Alberta was the unquestioned leader of the group). Eventually John married Alberta and in 1996 they had a son named Zack. John left the group and Alberta in 1998 and soon after that he filed for custody of Zack. 

The custody battle between John and Alberta was an incredibly vicious one. Alberta declared that she would never allow John to have her son without being present. She said that it was against her religion (MOVE Law) to separate a child from their mother. I became aware of the custody battle in 1999. It wasn’t of particular interest to me but it seemed to be of growing concern to MOVE. I hadn’t even met Alberta Africa at that point and I was much more concerned with MOVE’s philosophy and the legal struggles of Mumia and the MOVE 9. 

By 2000 the custody case was becoming a prime concern for MOVE. Some of the energy that I was putting into the movement was diverted to participate in strange protests against John Gilbride and his extended family. MOVE claimed that John’s intention in marrying and having a child with Alberta had been to create a confrontation the entire time. They said that he had actually been a CIA or FBI agent, and that this entire custody case was a government plot to try to provoke another confrontation. This seemed quite strange, but I was 17 and I loved everything about MOVE. I did whatever I was asked to do. 

When I moved up in 2001 the custody case was settling down a bit, but in August of 2002 the intensity increased dramatically. After a long and protracted battle John was awarded partial custody. MOVE’s response to this was to board up their headquarters at 45th and Kingsessing in West Philly and declare that if anyone tried to take Zack from his mother then the city would face another confrontation similar to May of 1985 or August of 1978. At 11 pm on September 27th, 2002 John Gilbride was murdered, shot multiple times in his head and chest at close range,  while sitting in his car in front of his apartment in Maple Shade, NJ. He had just arrived home from work. It was the night before his first scheduled unsupervised visit with his son. 

John’s murder hit all of us MOVE supporters like a bus. Everything became real very quickly. However, Alberta told many creative and conflicting stories (he was still alive, but he had also been murdered by the government or the mafia) about what had actually happened to John, eventually the detectives stopped asking questions, and the case went cold. I think all of us tried to forget about all of it. I doubled down on my political organizing and my dedication to MOVE even increased for quite a while. It needed to increase or it would crumble. Occasionally a difficult thought would find its way in, but with enough effort I could find a way to make my world make sense. 

I continued regular prison visits with the MOVE 9 and Mumia, and I continued to consult Sue and Alberta Africa for advice about nearly every aspect of my life. Maiga and I had started dating in May of 2002 (four months before John’s murder) and Maiga was pulled into MOVE even more quickly than I had been. In the winter of 2006 Mike Africa Jr. and I started a landscaping business. As I was driving home from a long day of landscaping in the fall of 2007 a thought hit me so hard that I had to pull my truck to the shoulder. It felt like a lightning storm inside my head. “They killed John.” Of course I had thought about it before, but this was different. Something about my entire point of reference had flipped completely upside down. Five years of cognitive dissonance had broken something in my brain and I would never be able to see the world the same way again. John’s death wasn’t the only thing that I allowed myself to question. There were growing gaps in a lot of the stories I had been told and I was finally allowing myself to explore them. 

Nearly every time I’ve told this story to someone they’ve asked me “Well then why were you still around MOVE ten years later?”. Even though I had serious problems with some of the elements of MOVE, that didn’t make the relationships I had with people meaningless. I loved a lot of people in MOVE very deeply and I still do. Maiga also had her own relationship with MOVE that rested on a different foundation than my own. My initial fascination with MOVE came from its mission, and the meaning and purpose that it provided for my own life. Maiga’s initial interests were more relational. She was also just beginning to get to know MOVE when John was murdered and didn’t take part in that terrible campaign in the same ways that I did. It took us a long time to understand each others’ experiences.  

It may seem like I’ve been skirting around the word “cult”, and there’s a reason for that. I’m comfortable using that word to refer to MOVE, and based on the definition of the term and the structure of the group it is accurate. However, I bristle a bit when other people use that term, not because it isn’t true but because of the associations that people have with that word. When people talk about cults, and especially when they are portrayed in documentaries and podcasts, there’s often a degree of voyeurism which emphasizes the outlandish, scandalous, and potentially dangerous elements of the group. These elements are often all true, but by overemphasizing them they risk obscuring the whole story. 

One reason I’ve been so happy talking to Beth McNamara, the producer of the podcast, is that she has worked hard to understand the experience of someone entering a group like MOVE. Her reporting of this story has led her to understand John’s experience, and how he found himself in the position that he did, in a way that few people who haven’t been through the experience could. Many people commenting on John’s conflict with MOVE, including the Philadelphia Police Department and some in the media, acted as if John must have been crazy to have arrived where he did. There was little effort to understand his experience, and other than his family he was totally alone. 

I must admit that part of my participation in this project is selfish. The loneliness I experienced in 2007 when I stopped being a true believer and struggled to find new foundations for my own worldview are hard to describe. Talking about these events with more people who understand has been cathartic and maybe these conversations will be helpful to someone else as well. One of my hopes for this podcast is that it may serve as a resource for people in group dynamics they are uncomfortable with, or for people with family members in such a situation. 

Over the years I’ve thought a lot about how I ended up on this path, and in retrospect I have a lot of sympathy for the idealistic teenager I once was. Our culture doesn’t provide many healthy channels for young people who are seeking meaning. Many of the institutions that used to serve this purpose no longer seem like viable options. Coming of age in our culture is an alienating affair for many.  I didn’t see the meaning or purpose in the traditional paths and wanted a path so meaningful that it would be worth giving up everything else to follow. I wanted something that would test me, mold me, and strengthen me.

When I first encountered MOVE I was so impressed with their holistic vision. I was independently interested in self-sufficiency, human rights, racial justice, voluntary poverty, and animal rights, and their worldview seemed to encompass all of these things. I was initially less interested in the political struggles of MOVE and more interested in living a Thoreauvian lifestyle and becoming stronger and more self-sufficient. In a group like MOVE (yes, you can say it, cult) idealism brings one into the group and personal relationships keep them there. Even as the shiny veneer of MOVE faded for me I still cared deeply for the members of MOVE (and still do). Many people in cults are woven into the group by relationships that would be unbearably painful to sever by the time they figure out what’s going on. Maiga and I talk about these issues frequently and she has had the helpful insight that a cult is an incredibly complex network of co-dependent relationships. 

Some of the people I met in MOVE were also incredible people. If you listen to “Murder at Ryan's Run” you will hear about terrible things that have happened within MOVE all the way back to its foundation in the early ‘70s. I have read Beth’s source material closely and studied MOVE’s history, and all of what she is reporting is true. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that there is an internal beauty within MOVE. In-group and out-group relationships are complicated and within a cult an ends justify the means way of seeing the world can twist one’s moral compass and make people behave in ways that are very difficult to understand from the outside. However, within MOVE there are some very kind, compassionate, and brilliant people who have simply found themselves tangled in a confusing web. 

One of the key factors in ending up in a cult is timing. If John had been a bit older or a bit younger when he was so shattered by the bombing of MOVE in 1985 then he would have responded very differently than he did. If I had been a few years older or a few years younger then I wouldn’t have been susceptible in the way that I was. As the timing aligned for me and I moved further into the group I was rewarded immediately. I felt a closeness with people that I had never experienced. There is an intimacy that you can feel with people when you share a cause and when you are fighting alongside one another that can’t be experienced in any other way. I think we are likely evolutionarily programmed to desire this closeness, after all an individual at odds with their tribe doesn’t survive long. There are aspects of cult dynamics that seem to be more natural for our psyche and leaving them can feel like a type of death. 

The years following 2007 were almost unbearably difficult for me at times. I had decided to play a very long game that I was unlikely to win. Each time I tried to talk about any of these issues with Maiga directly it went very badly. One time Sue and Carlos Africa were alerted about how I felt and they were in my house talking to me about it within a half an hour (they had a key and let themselves in). A few days later Sue asked me directly if I thought they had killed John. I was so tired of lying and said yes. Somehow we were able to move on from that and I continued going on prison visits and spending most of my time with MOVE members and supporters. I was lonely and had no one to talk to about my experience. At the same time I still wanted justice for Mumia and the MOVE 9. I also still really enjoyed the company of many in MOVE. Years passed fairly quickly. 

A decade passed in this way. I was playing a waiting game and making some progress. By 2018 Maiga had her own frustrations with MOVE leadership (Sue and Alberta Africa) that she could no longer ignore. She became pregnant with our daughter and we both decided that we needed to put some boundaries between us and MOVE leadership. In May of 2019 (one month before my daughter was born) I sent an open letter to Sue Africa regarding some concerns I had with MOVE leadership. This letter had nothing to do with John’s murder, but it did give us space and some boundaries away from MOVE leadership before our daughter was born. 

John had been on my mind fairly frequently in all of the intervening years. When our daughter was born I started thinking about him all the time. Having a child made me understand the position he had been in on a level that I never could have understood before. When my daughter was a month old I was driving her around to try to get her to fall asleep. As I was driving through Maple Shade, New Jersey I pulled into Ryan’s Run apartments without any conscious awareness. I knew that was where John had been murdered. I had thought about it many times as I drove past his apartment complex over the years but I had never had the impulse to pull in. As my daughter slept I looked up a newspaper article and found his apartment number. I drove around the circle and pulled into the parking space in front of his apartment - 304. 

I sat there for a very long time. I was processing a lot of things I’d tried not to think about. I imagined the night of the murder. I thought about his son Zack, who throughout my years in MOVE I had come to know, love, and have my own relationship with. The Ryan’s Run apartments became a regular stop on my routine drives to try to get my daughter to sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the murder and about what John must have been feeling as he tried to fight for his relationship with his son. 

Then on June 26th of 2020 I got a call from an L.A. number. I let it go to voicemail. I still have the message. “Hi Kevin, my name is Beth McNamara. I am a documentary producer and I am working on a project looking into the unsolved murder of John Gilbride and would like to talk to you.” I was incredibly nervous. I asked Maiga what she thought. “You know you have to talk to her.” She knew how much I’d been thinking about this, and the timing was so strange. Before the call came in I was about to take my daughter to the park. After talking to Maiga I left for the park. As I pushed my daughter in the stroller I called Beth for the first time. 

I learned that she had started the project two years before. She originally intended to do a documentary on the history of MOVE that would likely have been mostly favorable. During one of her many interviews for that project she learned about John’s murder. As she began to dig a very different story began to emerge. 

The first time I talked to Beth I liked her. She seemed sincere and to only be concerned with finding the truth. Over a series of conversations I began to trust her and I decided to talk to her on the record about things I never intended to talk about publicly. I never intended to spend time battling with people over the details of this case. I see how messy it can be when someone leaves a group like MOVE and decides to make it their mission to challenge them (that is still not my mission). However, in the past year a few things have changed for me. For one I have gotten to know the Gilbride family. I had always wanted to apologize to them for taking part in the character assassination that eventually led to John’s actual assassination. Beth was able to connect me with John’s surviving family and as I have gotten to know them I have grown to care for them a great deal. I now feel an even deeper desire for the truth about John’s life to be told. The same desire for justice that led me to MOVE is the same force that is now pushing me to speak out. 

I have also decided to go on the record because I don’t think that John and Alberta’s son Zack (now in his mid-twenties) will ever really be able to understand himself and to find peace until he knows who his father really was. The path Zack has before him is an incredibly difficult one no matter what he does. I recognize that by sharing my thoughts I may be increasing his stress and difficulty in the short term. Zack loves his mother deeply. I understand that and hope that he can continue to love his mother while also understanding the full story, and the lengths his father went for him. I can’t even begin to understand how difficult his path is. However, I think that confronting that truth directly will likely be less catastrophic than avoiding it. 

The main reason I am doing this is because I want people to understand John’s story. The more I’ve begun to understand John the more that I identify with his experience. John was a kind, compassionate person whose open-heartedness was weaponized against him. John was taken advantage of and when he was no longer useful he was made an enemy and then killed. I want John’s story told because stories matter. The way that we frame the past creates the reality we experience and John’s story has meaning. 

I feel that I owe this to John. As you will hear in the podcast, I participated deeply in the cruel and vicious campaign of character assassination and intimidation that Alberta waged against him. I took part in flyering his parents’ neighborhood with outrageous allegations against them. I protested against John in front of the family court house, and I even put flyers in John’s apartment complex alleging that he was an abusive father (he certainly was not) only one week before he was murdered. I deeply regret my actions. MOVE portrayed John as an abuser, a CIA agent, and a racist. The media portrayed John as clueless and in many ways they reinforced MOVE’s narrative. I’m hoping that this podcast can shine a light on who he really was. 

Despite everything I’m saying here I still care deeply about many people in MOVE. Up until the last year I never planned to speak publicly about any of this. If I have pulled back or been distant then now you know why. I know that this could feel like a betrayal in many ways, but I am trying my best to follow my own conscience. I understand that by speaking out I am putting some people in uncomfortable positions. I apologize for that and I’m sorry that this complicated mess is shaking out this way. Even if my decision here means that we don’t speak again please know that my affection for people in MOVE was very real. I am still hoping everyday that Mumia will be freed. I am so glad the MOVE 9 are home and I have mourned for those who have passed.

I know that the chances of this happening are effectively zero, but my deepest hope in all of this is that Alberta will admit that what she did was wrong and that she will atone for her actions. I don’t think that she will have peace in her remaining years unless she does so. I do not know for certain that Alberta had John murdered, but I do know that she waged a war of lies that made the last years of his life a living hell. I know that she took advantage of a network of supporters who were mostly interested in fighting for the unjustly incarcerated and she used them to fight her personal war. For this I hope that she seeks atonement, and in that I hope that she finds peace. 

For some of you who have supported MOVE for years this may all seem very far off the mark from your own relationship with MOVE. I understand this and I respect that you have your own experience. I am not seeking to change that, I am merely sharing my own experience. I became a true-believer and adopted MOVE’s ways quickly and as a result I had a relationship with MOVE that was different from most people who support on a political level. Most people perceive Pam and Ramona as MOVE’s leaders and have barely heard of Sue or Alberta Africa. I am not trying to dissuade you from the work that you are doing and recognize that Pam and Mike Jr. are doing some very compelling work. I care about them a great deal and I wish them the best.

If anyone reading this has sincere questions or feedback for me I am open to having conversations. I have no interest in having debates or in yelling matches. Please don’t call me out of the blue, but if you’d like to discuss what I’m saying please email me at leavingmove@gmail.com. If you find yourself in a situation similar to what I experienced then I would be happy to talk with you as well. You will also find resources for cult survivors below. If we used to have a relationship and my speaking out now makes that impossible then I understand that too. I wish you the best and maybe our paths will cross again one day as part of a different story. 

Peace,

Kevin

Here's the podcast:

Teaser number one

Teaser number two



Resources for people leaving cults: