by Maiga Milbourne
In mid-June of 2018, it felt like the world turned on its axis.
On Thursday, June 14, Ramona Africa was hospitalized for a stroke, lymphoma, and diabetes.
Two days later, on June 16, Debbie Africa was the first of the MOVE 9 to be released from prison after 40 years.
At that time, I was a committed MOVE supporter but I was noting serious issues within the organization. Based on the information that I had, I thought that most of the interpersonal issues that I was witnessing were the result of trauma. I was closest to Ria (Sue) and would often try to gently talk to her about giving more decision-making power to the younger generation-- specifically to people like Mike Jr, June (Pixie), and others who were already fully adults with many responsibilities within the organization. I offered that she and Bert could be more cared for and that shifting some of those dynamics would likely give them more relief and give the next generation more agency.
These conversations fell on deaf ears and I was increasingly troubled by what I was seeing within the organization.
I would come down to West Philly from my home in South Jersey about twice a week. It was a big commitment as it’s a half-hour drive each way and was generally in the middle of the day. This ritual was grandfathered in over the years. Ria had come to count on me to take her to run errands (she, and many in the organization, do not drive), get groceries, go sit in coffee houses, and talk. It was equally common for me to pick up Ria and whoever she might throw in my car outside the house or to go in. In the spring of 2018, there was increasing animosity between Ria and Bert, and Mike Jr., and those who allied themselves with him. Ria would often tell me rumors suggesting that Mike Jr. was no longer a loyal nor reliable MOVE member. I would try to sort out what I was hearing but it basically amounted to Ria and Bert being angry that Mike Jr. was working closely with producer Tommy Oliver and lawyers Bret Grote and Brad Thomson to release his parents, Debbie and Mike Sr of the MOVE 9. Of course, his efforts were also to benefit all of the MOVE 9.
MOVE supporters, according to Ria and Bert, were meant to come around the MOVE organization to assist in the liberation of the MOVE 9. That was the stated goal. It was our job to be activists and educators on the MOVE 9 and what had lead to their incarceration: the history of August 8, 1978, the issues they addressed as MOVE members in Powelton village, and the activist work they came to do as political prisoners. That meant we regularly visited all of the MOVE 9 where we would spend hours in conversation enjoying each other's company. We would write letters to them. We would be their advocates within activist and organizing circles on the outside.
Ria suggesting to me that Mike Jr. bringing his parents home was a problem was an immediate and huge red flag. She kept trying to create an argument that would in any way make sense, but she couldn’t spin this. She would say that John Africa said that Mumia was meant to come home through the courts and the MOVE 9 through the power of the people. But John Africa had also said that no Philly sports team would win a title while the MOVE 9 were in prison, and the Philadelphia Phillies won the world series in 2008 so I didn’t have much stock in that prophecy.
I would counter with arguments like: but we don’t believe in prisons. Ramona had told a story for years that she was put in jail over a weekend in the early days of MOVE. When she got there, she was kind of comfortable and enjoying spending time with other MOVE members, and when she was being bailed out she told her family that it was fine, she’d stay in jail with her sisters for the weekend. Something happened and she got a much longer hit and had to stay in jail for many more months. She always told it as a cautionary tale that no one should allow themselves to be imprisoned if they could help it.
Ria would hem and haw and ultimately say that I wouldn’t understand.
Meanwhile, Ramona was having serious medical issues and had for years. It was being hidden by the larger organization. At a program at the Rotunda, MOVE men brought Ramona in as she couldn’t walk the steps herself and then sat her behind the merchandise table for the entirety of the evening. I sat with her and remember overhearing other people saying how humble she was to be at the merchandise table. She was there because she couldn’t walk.
With June, Kevin, and many other MOVE members pushing Ria and Bert, they finally and reluctantly took her to an urgent care. The doctor thought it was possible lymphoma and urged a spleen test. Ria was in hysterics. She didn’t want that procedure to happen.
People in the organization would call Kevin and me as though we were medical experts and ask for our advice. We continuously said, “do the test. Get immediate care for her. If it IS lymphoma, time is of the essence.”
I know that June and others in the organization were saying the same. But MOVE's belief is that all medical ailments are “mental,” meaning in the mind, and so Ria and Bert maintained that if Mona “did her work,” meaning somehow fixed her mind to heal lymphoma, that no action would be necessary. However, there are serious inconsistencies in when MOVE’s belief is applied in this way as Alberta has had many medical procedures, some of which were elective. The denial of medical care for Ramona functioned similarly to the denial of medical care for June and other young women, as punishment.
That spring I contracted Lyme disease and was away from MOVE for a few weeks while I recuperated. I was finally well enough to come down in mid-June. This meant that it had been weeks since I had seen Mona.
Ria asked me down on Thursday, June 14. I was going to come before Kevin and I were both away for the weekend. He had planned a rock climbing trip in New Hampshire with some friends. At that time, I taught yoga full time and lead yoga retreats. A retreat center in Maine had invited me to view their venue so I was taking a friend and fellow yoga teacher up with me to see the retreat center.
On Thursday, June 14, I came down to MOVE headquarters. Ria asked me in to see Mona. Mona was sitting on the porch and was clearly dying. June was tending to her and obviously distraught. She had been begging for Mona to get medical care for months and no one would listen to her. Carlos was there. He seemed distracted and avoidant. I remember him sitting by Mona and shelling peanuts.
Half of Mona’s face was sagging. She kept mumbling incoherently about the sun. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight and looked like a pile of bones within her nightgown. Her feet and ankles were grotesquely swollen with ashy, dry skin stretched overtop.
Ria said we should go. I got Ria into the car and said, “Mona needs to go to a hospital. Do you want me to drive her or should I call the ambulance?”
Ria didn’t fight me-- which was significant-- but also wouldn’t act. She told me to go to the coffee shop. I was terrified but I thought I might have more success if I got her on my side. I didn’t know what would happen if an ambulance just showed up at MOVE headquarters. It seemed like that might be worse for Mona because MOVE people might fight them and then become more obstinate in her treatment.
I took Ria to United by Blue on Walnut street in West Philly. I heard her speaking on the phone, I assume to Bert. Ria was sort of talking through, both on the phone and with me, the implications of getting Mona treatment. I tried to stay calm and gentle but did my best to convey urgency. We finally went back to the house-- I think after two hours!-- and Ria elected to call Mona’s mother to take her to the hospital. I told her that I was staying until she went to the hospital. I was scared that if I left they wouldn’t take her. It's worth emphasizing the June and other MOVE members had been insisting that Mona needed to go to the hospital for months and that she likely only listened to me because I am white.
I was glad that I did stay. Mona’s mother was doing childcare and arrived right away but with a car full of children. (She also had been deeply worried for months and pushing for medical care.) She didn’t have room for Mona in her car. I said I could drive Mona or we could call an ambulance.
There was a lot more deliberating, as Mona sat dying on that porch. Finally, they agreed to use my car. June, Ria, Carlos, and I carried Mona into my car. Carlos and June came as I drove to Penn hospital and Mona’s mother followed behind. Carlos and June brought Mona into the hospital. It was a blessing that June was there as she was able to advocate. She was Mona’s primary medical point person and did a tremendous job. June is responsible for several MOVE members being alive when leadership behaved as though they wanted them to die from medical neglect.
At that point, I was told to go home. I wasn’t family so I couldn’t get in. Penn had recognized Mona as having an active stroke and immediately admitted her. They said she would have died had she not been seen quickly.
In the months that followed the physicians explained how the undiagnosed and untreated lymphoma had lead to several previous mini-strokes and the stroke that she suffered on that June 14 day.
I remember calling Kevin, in shock. He had a backpack strapped on his back and was walking through Manhattan to wait in a friend’s apartment until the group met to drive to New England. Thankfully, that friend is a physician who advised us, over the phone, through many medical decisions that weekend.
Ria told me to go to Maine. I wouldn’t be able to see Mona for a few days anyway.
I gathered my friend and we drove north. We arrived the evening of June 15.
On the morning of June 16, I was sitting on the steps of the retreat center in Maine drinking coffee. Kevin called. Mike Jr. had Debbie in his car and they were driving away from Cambridge Springs prison. Debbie had called Kevin on the drive from SCI-Cambridge Springs. He still has the message on his phone.
I couldn’t believe it. I knew Ria had said that she might be released in the coming weeks but I had no knowledge of when nor if it would happen.
And it felt like this rip in the fabric of the universe. Mona was in the hospital and might not survive the multiple conditions she was suffering. And Debbie was home.
There’s so much more to say about all of this and that period in time. As Mona stabilized, everyone in the organization took shifts to sit with her first at the hospital and later at various rehab centers. June was a primary organizer of this care. Kevin and I took many shifts a week, making meals for Mona, and sitting with her. All of us took turns staying with Mona overnight, making sure she was safe in the hospital and rehab center.
There’s a lot to say about what care was permitted and what wasn’t. It often felt like Mona’s health was being purposefully sabotaged by leadership. It was in those desperate conversations with June that Kevin and I began learning about corruption in the organization that we had never previously imagined. This was the foundation of a new level of trust and closeness with June and a much greater awareness that MOVE leadership wasn’t simply traumatized but criminal.
When I came home from Maine, I sat with Mona. Afterward, I was so excited to go see Debbie. I had met her many times on visits in prison but never on the outside. I called Ria and asked if I could take her to see Debbie. It was policy, for Ria and Bert, to not see Debbie. (They later did but under very strange, strained conditions.) Ria kept saying that one day I would understand. There was nothing that could make me understand. Debbie had done 40 years in prison. MOVE said they believed in family. MOVE prided itself on not falling prey to the COINTELPRO tactics that split apart groups like the Black Panthers. MOVE counseled other groups on never turning on one another.
I kept asking, what could possibly be the reason to not see her? Ria would evade and finally say, “well, she didn’t tell Janet and Janine that she was leaving.” And “Mike Jr didn’t tell me and Bert.” I soon understood that there were very good reasons for Mike Jr. to keep this information hidden, as he had every reason to believe that Ria and Bert had done everything in their power to keep his parents in prison.
No one could say anything. It was a sensitive deal to get Debbie released and her release paved the way for the rest of the MOVE 9 to come home. And yet, these were the petty reasons that I was given.
My perspective is that Ria and Bert were mad. Debbie’s release was not sanctioned or planned by them. They fought Mike Jr’s actions on behalf of his parents tooth and nail. They continuously said that John Africa said they wouldn’t come home this way. Though they always claimed publicly that John Africa prophesized that the MOVE 9 would come home in victory, they privately told others that the MOVE 9 were never supposed to come home at all. I think that for Mike Jr., Pam, and many others, their organizing efforts to get the MOVE 9 released were sincere and legitimate, but ultimately Ria and Bert sabotaged possibilities for their release.
I think the truth is that they didn’t want the MOVE 9 to ever come home. As long as the MOVE 9 were incarcerated, they had a cause. They had an activity to draw supporters to them. The machine was well-oiled. Supporters fight for the freedom of the MOVE 9. They go to prisons and write letters. They talk about MOVE at activist events. MOVE has a cause. They have a reason to fundraise.
With the MOVE 9 home, they lost all of that relevance. As a new supporter, I thought MOVE people would return to the activities they had engaged in prior to the incarceration of the MOVE 9. I thought they would educate about anti-racist action, healthy and simple living, and the rest of MOVE belief tenets. But they were so far from living in that way and Ria and Bert, for certain, showed no interest in returning to that lifestyle.
For me, that’s when I internally left, though I didn’t fully distance myself for another year. I couldn’t accept Debbie being shunned after serving a 40-year prison sentence. I couldn’t believe the medical neglect and torture of Mona. For years, I had dreamed of the MOVE 9 coming home. I had cried about it and imagined it as a moment of such hope. That the activist community would use this triumph to galvanize us to do so much more good work in the world. I watched the MOVE 9 come home, one by one, and see this moment absolutely squandered, while the internal organization continued to fracture. Reluctantly, there were a few press conferences.
I had talked to Eddie and Mumia in the summer of 2018, while they were both still incarcerated at Mahanoy. We gently explained that Ria and Bert hadn’t spoken to Mike Jr. in months over his work on behalf of his parents. Eddie scoffed and said, “when I get home I’ll sort all of that out.”
When he got home, he went into MOVE headquarters and after, towed their line. He, Janet, and Janine have closely allied themselves with Ria and Bert. June has often said that many of the young people in MOVE hoped that when the MOVE 9 came home that they would save them from the abuse they suffered. Instead there was just more of the same. Those loyal to Ria and Bert now call themselves the “original MOVE members.” Debbie and Mike Sr live on their own. The groups don’t comingle.
Sadly, Chuck Africa was abandoned by Ria and Bert many years ago. Kevin recalls Ria telling him, at least seven years ago, that Chuck was working with the police. Kevin knew at the time that this was a lie and that Chuck was far more loyal to the ideals of MOVE than Ria and Bert. Chuck was denied the support of the well-funded faction of the Organization while he was most in need of emotional support and medical care.
Debbie and Mike Sr. came to see my daughter a few times as a little baby. She loved Mike Sr. especially. I remember that I was in Mona’s room at Powerback rehab when I got the positive on my pregnancy test. She was watching an old western on TV. I didn’t tell her at that time.
As I write this, tears are welling up in my eyes. It should have been so different.
Mona should have been cared for. She should have gotten early medical intervention and treatment of her choosing. Had she, she likely never would have had a stroke.
Debbie and all of the MOVE 9 should have been honored as they came home. That victory should have been an encouragement for all activists to continue to bring prisoners home and build the world we want to live in.
That summer of 2018, Kevin and I were stunned on the phone as June first told us some of the truth of her life in MOVE. They weren’t nearly the disclosures of this past March of 2021, but they were enough to know that MOVE was not what it says it was. Despite how she was treated, June would not allow others to be hurt. She tirelessly advocated for Mona’s health even against the virulent opposition of Ria and Bert, even though Mona should have done much more to protect all of them as children. Even as they fought her, Ria and Bert continuously relied on June as they couldn’t navigate insurers and providers as she could.
Just this past spring, as June was planning her escape, she was still figuring out how to carefully transfer Mona’s medical care.
As I write this, I’m trying to figure out how to conclude. And the reality is, this particular story isn’t over. And there’s no way to make it neat or convenient. It’s tragic. It’s truly tragic. And I’m telling it so that as we all share this knowledge, we can protect each other.
Mona deserves careful attention to support her health. According to all of the survivors, she also bears some responsibility for what they endured.
Debbie and the MOVE 9 deserve so much more than they received in their homecoming. They also know a great deal about the hidden history of MOVE.
June and the other survivors deserve our protection and support.
I hope we rise to this occasion.
Maiga Milbourne was a dedicated MOVE supporter from 2002-2018. She distanced herself from the group as she began to note troubling patterns within MOVE. In 2021, June Stokes AKA Pixie Africa disclosed severe abuse suffered within MOVE. Together with Maiga’s husband Kevin Price, “Murder at Ryan’s Run” podcast producer Beth McNamara, podcast researcher Bob Helms, and former MOVE members Josh and Whit Robbins, a plan was crafted where June publicly left MOVE with her 5 children and went into hiding. Publicity from both the podcast and this blog has been used to keep her and her children safe.
How is Mona now??
ReplyDeleteThe last time that I saw Mona was at my baby shower in May of 2019. June (Pixie) was one of her primary care providers before she transferred care to escape. When she was caring for her, we had updates. Now, all I know is what Janine posts on Facebook.
DeleteWhat I knew was that her lymphoma was in remission in late 2018 (I believe, my memory on the exact dates is hazy) after she had chemo and other therapies. She was still suffering from diabetes and the effects of the strokes.
When she was being discharged from the rehabs, Bert and Ria were in a frenzy. Bert was never going to care for her so having Mona live at Bert's was never even an option. She was going to be sent to Ria's but Ria was supposed to learn to catheterize her, which she was unwilling to do (I believe June did learn). Mona was at Ria's some, but against Mona's wishes, she was pretty quickly sent to live with her mother.
Her mother is older than everyone named and lives by herself. Despite these factors, again and again, she has risen to the challenge of caring for her daughter.
Since that time, Mona has sometimes been back at MOVE headquarters, I believe mainly cared for by women other than Ria and Bert, and then often sent back to her mother's against her wishes.
Janine posted that Mona was hospitalized with COVID in late June and has since been discharged.
My personal hope would be that people would give Mona's mother (and biological family) A LOT of support and help in caring for Mona. And be very watchful of other MOVE people in regards to Mona.