Fri.April 10,11am KFAI Radio: RAMONA AFRICA

"Catalyst:politics & culture: host/producer Lydia Howell
90.3fm Mpls/106,7fm St.Paul All shows live-streaming& archived for 2
weeks after broadcast at "Catalyst" page at: http://www.kfai.org

Hear a conversation with lifelong activist RAMONA AFRICA, of the MOVE
organization of Philadelphia who will be in the Twin Cities APRIL 18-19
(see EVENT info below). She is most known for her work on the
international defesne committee to free Pennsylvania death row dissident
journalist MUMIA ABU-JAMAL In 1979, Ramona Africa joined MOVE, a
multi-racial group begun by John Africa (who was later murdered by
police). The organization combined anti-raicsm, anti-imperialism with a
precient environmental perspective. Vegetarians and animal rights
orineted,MOVE practiced their principles on a daily basis, living
communally--and in the process alienating some of their neighbors. What
amounted to various petty misdemeanors about "noise" and the state of
their house was used as reasons for police attacks that ultimately
resulted in the May 13, 1985 bom resulting in a block of destroyed homes
and bing of the MOVE home. The military style bombing of a residential
neighborhood almost a several adults and five children being burned to
death in the MOVE house. As is the pattern with police brutality and
violecne against civillians, as one of the victims of that
violence,Ramona Africa was a survivor of that bombing who was charged
with felonies and served 7 years in prison. Since her release, she also
works to expose and challenge what Angela Davis has termed the
prison-industrial complex---one of the few "growth" industries in the
U.S., which has resulted in the highest prison population on Earth--with
one in 99 AMreicans (a majority of them people of color) behind bars.

EVENT INFO:

Ramona Africa, International Spokesperson for the MOVE Organization
April 18   11:30 AM
Hamline School of Law Room 105

The MOVE 9 have been in prison since 1978 serving 30-100 year sentences
following a massive police assault on their home in Powelton Village,
Philadelphia where a police officer was killed by an unidentified
bullet. MOVE supporter Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and former Black
Panther, is a political prisoner known worldwide as the "voice of the
voiceless." Abu-Jamal was sentenced to Pennsylvania's death row in 1982
for the killing of a Philadelphia police officer.
Ramona Africa is the only adult survivor of the May 13th, 1985 bombing
of the MOVE family by Philadelphia police and city officials which
resulted in the death of 11 people, 5 of whom were children, and the
destruction of 60 homes on Osage Avenue. Ramona was immediately taken
into custody and eventually convicted of riot and conspiracy. She spent
the next seven years in prison. Immediately upon her release in 1992,
she rejoined her family's struggle to free the MOVE 9 and Mumia
Abu-Jamal. In April of 1996 Ramona headed a civil lawsuit against the
City and its officials for the May 13th bombing. On June 24th of the
same year, the jury rendered a verdict in her favor. She has spoke at
numerous colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and abroad.

This event is to demonstrate support and raise awareness, for the MOVE
9, Mumia Abu Jamal, all Political Prisoners in the U.S., and show the
need for reform to the U.S. Prison Industrial Complex which currently
encompasses over 7.3 million people.

AND A SECOND EVENT!!!

Also Join us for a second event hosted by the Prison Reform Project,
Communities United Against Police Brutality and the RNC 8 Defense Committee

Repression and Resistance, Then and Now
April 19, 2009
2:00 p.m.
Hallie Q Brown/Martin Luther King Community Center
270 N Kent Street, St. Paul
Ramona will speak about the nature of political repression and
resistance as experienced by members of the MOVE family, including Mumia
Abu-Jamal, and how these threads run to the prosecution of the RNC 8 and
others.  A reception will follow.