“Women of MOVE.”
Several days ago, after discussion with sister Suzanne, I began thinking about a piece on the women of MOVE. This seemed especially timely after the recent release of several MOVE sisters: Debbie, Janet, and Janine Africa.
These women spent over 40 years in Pennsylvania prisons, some spent in notorious holes for protests against what they called unjust treatment. These women weren’t strangers to me, for I interviewed some of them back in the seventies when they moved to the old MOVE house on Powelton Avenue, not far from Drexel University. Some of them, I interviewed when they were held in the old House of Correction in the northeast.
40 plus years had passed, and behold, these were the same women. Older? Yes, but not by much. But I’m wrong. An honest look reveals they are more committed, more dedicated than the young women who entered these cells over 40 years ago. In seeing pictures of them, I’m forced to say here’s another observation. They were more beautiful now than they were 40 years ago.
This may seem hard to believe, but see for yourself. It is what it is. And speaking of MOVE women, I don’t think that many people widely know the simple but telling fact that the administrators of MOVE are women. They essentially lead the organization. We don’t see this example in the broader movement unless it’s a women’s organization.
For discipline, commitment, steadfastness, even will, yes, the women of the MOVE organization have set a high bar, for they are women of John Africa’s revolution.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.