Tag: Chuck Africa

The wheels of justice often move very slowly in our country, but we are picking up speed. Chuck Africa is now free! He was the youngest of the MOVE 9 to be arrested after the horrific events of Aug. 8, 1978. The groundswell of grassroots activity in Philly has brought MOVE members home starting with the release of Debbie Africa in June 2018 to Chuck Africa, the morning of Friday, Feb. 7, 2020. Two of the nine members, Merle and Phil Africa, passed away in prison, but the remaining seven are now free.

MOVE member Delbert Africa, held in prison since the confrontation of Aug. 8, 1978, has walked out of a Pennsylvania prison after 42 years.

In the early morning of June 16, after nearly 40 years of unjust imprisonment by the state of Pennsylvania, political prisoner and MOVE 9 member Debbie Sims Africa was granted parole and released from the State Correctional Institution-Cambridge Springs. Messaging on Instagram, the MOVE Organization wrote: “Our sister Debbie Africa is FREE! What a beautiful day to find freedom! Let’s keep fighting for our bros and sisters still behind bars — Mike [Sr.], Eddie, Chuck, Janet, Janine and Delbert! The struggle is underway!” This important victory comes exactly two years after Debbie, Janet and Janine Africa were last denied parole in 2016.

What happened to them on Aug. 8, the hellistic rain of police gunfire, beatings, rape threats and incarceration, was nothing compared to what they faced in Philadelphia courtrooms, where they were denied their every right, including their alleged right to self-representation, beaten again when they refused to attend their own legal lynchings, and then, the lynchpin – convictions, and common sentences before Judge Edwin Malmed of 30 to 100 years, for third degree murder?!

You may think that you know something about solitary, but you don’t. You may have a loved one in prison who has experienced it and told you about it. But still I say, you don’t know it. For, as you know the word torture, you don’t know how it feels. For solitary is torture. State torture. Official torture. Government sanctioned torture.