Survivor of MOVE, Rain Robbins, started out a post on this blog by saying: "Have you ever had a conversation with God? I know people who have. I know people who stood on trial with him. He was god and Jesus all in one. The only being in this human form to truly know the will of Momma (Mother Nature and the universe). Have you ever been so close to divinity that sitting in a house in West Philadelphia reading “Guidelines” to a group of your peers rivaled listening to the Pope lead prayer in Rome’s most beautiful cathedral? Have you ever held the last true remnants of the real gospel in your hands? Words so powerful they’d bring the world to its feet? ….I have."
In Rain's insightful and beautifully written piece she describes one of the most important factors in keeping people in MOVE long after the veneer has lost its shimmer: being in MOVE makes you feel special. On one level this is obvious, after all this is a factor in drawing people towards not just cults, but nearly every human endeavor. However, there are specific ways that special status is used as capital within MOVE that make it deserving of a closer look. It's this selling of specialness that has recently led me to start thinking about MOVE as a sort of psychological pyramid scheme.
Of course, there are other elements of MOVE that are also similar to a pyramid scheme. Alberta Africa has managed to use the steep pyramid structure of MOVE to siphon millions of dollars from the members and supporters below her. However, unlike in a pyramid scheme, those in the lower levels aren't making any money from the people directly beneath them. For most MOVE members, involvement in MOVE makes them poorer, no matter how many supporters are under them. In this way, the structure of MOVE represents not so much a pyramid, but an oil rig, with Alberta extracting everything from those below her.
When MOVE was founded in 1972, Vincent Leaphart (who came to be known as John Africa) and Donald Glassey created a mythos that turned Leaphart into God. The teenagers and twenty-somethings who gravitated around Leaphart, a man in his early 40s, felt that they were privileged to be in the presence of such greatness. They came to believe that Leaphart had existed before time itself, that he could speak any language he needed to, and that he was the messiah sent to return humanity to a state before civilization. John Africa was the focus of reverence and attention, extreme specialness, for every MOVE member and supporter below him on the hierarchy.
The psychological pyramid scheme model within MOVE operates using specialness as the incentive. The price that must be paid in order to receive this specialness is intentional blindness to the hypocrisy and warning signs that are visible in the level of the pyramid directly above. Therefore, by unconsciously ignoring any problems exhibited by Leaphart, all of those under him became special by proxy, so long as no one disrupted the pattern. Each level of the MOVE pyramid was able to seem special to the rung below them, with closeness to Leaphart being the rare commodity driving the market. The levels of association with MOVE extend far out from the center, with many sympathetic academics, authors, and filmmakers depending on the romanticized image of MOVE used to support the specialness they received through association. This mutual dependence on a shared narrative kept the MOVE pyramid strong for many decades, and disincentivized people from being honest about their experiences.
When I became obsessed with MOVE as a teenager I was awestruck when I met Pam Africa at a demonstration in Washington DC. I met Ramona Africa a few months later and felt as if I were an early Christian meeting one of the apostles. Ramona wasn't John Africa, but she was as close as I thought I would ever come to him. I moved to Philly a few days after I turned 18 and started spending more time at MOVE headquarters. As I started to get closer with Ria and Alberta I really felt like I was special. After all, according to every MOVE member I talked to, they were the strongest MOVE members. At that time I was around Pam and Ramona Africa on a daily basis and both of them told me to look to Ria and Bert as guides. If I listened to Ria and Bert I was sure to stay on course.
Alberta had been MOVE-married to Vincent Leaphart (John Africa) and was, therefore, said to be the closest living person to him. Ria is Alberta's fiercest and most unquestioning defender. She's the only white MOVE member who remained loyal to John Africa (there were many white MOVE members in the early days) and is the obvious second-in-command. I was frequently told by Ria, and every other MOVE member, that Alberta was mentally the strongest person in the world. Despite the fact that Alberta spends the majority of her time on the couch ordering other people around, complaining, and in withdrawn depressive states, MOVE members talked about her as if she was one of the most incredible people to have ever lived. In order for MOVE's psychological pyramid scheme to continue functioning MOVE members couldn't be honest with themselves, or each other, about who Alberta really is. They'd built their own identities around the power they gained through Vincent Leaphart's specialness, the very same power from which Alberta drew her authority.
By the time I encountered Ria and Bert I was already completely sold on the MOVE mythology. If Ria and Alberta had been my introduction to MOVE I would have never gravitated toward MOVE in the first place. However, I first encountered MOVE, not in the form of a person, but in the form of an idea. When I read Mumia Abu-Jamal's characterization of MOVE in Death Blossoms I fell in love with his image of MOVE. The first MOVE members I met, Pam, Ramona, and the Seeds of Wisdom, were close enough to the concept of MOVE that I'd fallen in love with. By the time I encountered Ria and Bert I was already so sold on MOVE and had invested so much that it made psychological sense to project greatness onto them. I integrated myself into the pyramid, working hard to rise closer to the top.
My commitment to MOVE was externally supported by the respect that I gained from many activists for my close association with Ramona and Pam, and for being so committed to the cause. I benefitted from the mystique and romance that surrounds MOVE so long as you don't look too closely. As a white activist, my own unsophisticated idea of anti-racism was validated by being so deeply accepted in a predominantly Black "revolutionary" organization. There are many ways that white activists (like myself) have exploited their connections with MOVE for personal gain. There's a whole lot more that needs to be explored about the fact that most of the close MOVE supporters were white, and the way this white supporter network intersected with MOVE's white supremacist inner-circle beliefs. I plan to explore this more deeply in a future post.
My support for MOVE was also externally supported by meeting people like Zack de la Rocha, Danny Glover, Michael Franti, and many more, and hearing them talk glowingly about MOVE. A few months before I moved up to Philly, Danielle Mitterrand, the former First Lady of France, had spent the day at MOVE headquarters. At the height of the Mumia movement, there was an endless amount of external support which made me (and other supporters) feel as if I was on the right track. Everyone involved in this pattern had some stake in upholding the idea that MOVE was something that it is not; a righteous, revolutionary, liberation group.
However, there were many cracks in the veneer that I should have seen, so many signs I should have paid attention to. Cult psychology is complicated, and I was very young when I came around, so I try to cut myself a bit of a break. But it's also important that I take full responsibility for the things that I saw; the things I should have acted on but didn't. When Pixie (now June) was pregnant at the age of 12 I knew something was wrong. I was 18 at the time and I attended the forced wedding between 13-year-old Pixie and an 18-year-old man at MOVE's Kingsessing Ave. headquarters (as did doctors, psychologists, college professors, and other mandated reporters who have, unfortunately, continued to remain silent about what they knew and when they knew it).
Until June started confiding in my wife, Maiga, and me this past March I didn't know nearly how bad things were, but I knew enough that I should have asked questions and looked more deeply. However, I'd built my entire identity around MOVE. Being in MOVE made me special, it gave my life meaning. To look at MOVE unflinchingly, to actually allow myself to see what was right in front of me, would have destroyed the image of MOVE I had invested in so deeply.
I imagine that first-generation MOVE members went through the same process. I'm certain that all of them saw things in Leaphart that gave them pause, but they continued on. After all, if he wasn't who they claimed he was, then who were they? In a recent Guardian article, Mike Africa Sr. (now Mike Davis) talks about how he saw signs that MOVE was a cult early on, but he felt compelled to stay in MOVE so that he didn't lose his family (looking at MOVE's long history of splitting up families and stealing peoples' children this seems like a very valid concern). It seems likely that the MOVE members who lived at MOVE's Osage Avenue headquarters walked the same line. Even as it became clear that Vincent Leaphart intended for everyone in the Osage Avenue house to die MOVE members in the house continued to remain loyal to their vision of Leaphart as God (which reinforced their own ideas of themselves as direct disciples of God).
For this reason, it seems utterly disingenuous that some first-generation MOVE members have publicly distanced themselves from Ria and Bert while feigning scandal about what has now been publicly revealed about the abuse within MOVE. For a first-generation member, it would have been impossible not to have known about the abuse and psychological torture that the survivors have revealed. I understand how psychologically difficult it is to leave a cult. I know that leaving a cult often necessitates the death of an old identity, which can feel like actual death. However, the survivors have been very clear about their desire for first-generation MOVE members to be transparent about the truth of MOVE's history. I hope that these first-generation members can eventually come to terms with MOVE's true legacy so that they can give the people who were born into MOVE (and had no choice in being MOVE members) the transparency and healing they've asked for.
Equally disappointing to me has been the response from so many of the academics and professional activists who've built careers off of their associations with MOVE. Many of these people have spent decades around the children who were born into MOVE. I believe that some of these people genuinely care about the MOVE survivors but may be scared to speak out publicly due to the political ramifications of the MOVE reckoning. On my more cynical days, I think that it has more to do with the fact that many of them have published books, made documentaries, and written articles selling a romanticized version of MOVE that the testimonies of the survivors now render void. In the end, I think it all comes back to the specialness that MOVE sold all of us. Many still cling to the idea that what's been revealed in the last three and a half months is an anomaly in MOVE's history. Some hold on to the idea of MOVE as a liberation group. However, if one looks honestly at the testimonies and documents that have been presented on this blog, and on the Murder at Ryan's Run podcast, I don't believe that view can be maintained with any degree of intellectual honesty.
Much of the psychological pyramid scheme that held MOVE together has already crumbled. If one is honest about MOVE's history it becomes clear that the romantic image of MOVE has always been built upon the suffering, forced silence, and death of children. I don't believe a MOVE member, MOVE supporter, or sympathizer can actually listen to the testimonies of Whit, June, Josh, Maria, Salina, Sara, and Rain and feel anything but regret about romanticizing MOVE's history (much less validating your own sense of self through association with the romanticized image). Look deeply into the events that led up to August 8th, 1978, and May 13th, 1985 and it seems clear that Vincent Leaphart was not concerned at all about the children in the basements of Powelton Village and Osage Ave. I hope that the veneer of MOVE continues to be chipped away; that more people will distance themselves from the pyramid and tell the truth of what they know so that the survivors can get the transparency, acknowledgment, and healing that they deserve.
The top of the pyramid: Alberta (L) and Ria (R), at Alberta's wedding to Gary Wonderlin less than two months after Alberta's ex-husband, John Gilbride, was murdered
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