dear listeners-

tonight's tempestuous radio (6-8 saturdays) is going to be a good one- been doing lotsa research into MOVE, an amazing organization founded by John Africa in 1972. because they were so powerful, enjoyed popular support, and because the philly pd in the 70s was headed by racist frank rizzo (who has a lot in common with our pal sherif joe- see last week's show)- MOVE was the target of horrific police brutality, culminating with the bombing of their house by a police helicopter in 1985. the MOVE 9 were imprisoned in 1978 and are still in prison today, except for Merle Africa, who died in prison in 1998.

terrible things happened to these wonderful people, all of whom were bravely struggling to create a better world. adults and children were killed, many were imprisoned, many were beaten by philly police. all in all- it's something most folks out there have never heard about, but it's worth knowing and these people should never be forgotten.

i've written a couple times to Janine Africa, who is one of the MOVE 9 still in prison in Pennsylvania. i told her about the show, told her i wanted to dedicate a tempestuous radio session to educating people about MOVE and she sent me a powerful statement to read tonight.

in addition to reading Janine's letter, i'll be playing excerpts from a documentary about MOVE that was produced in 2004, and reading from a zine called 25 Years on the Move, all about the history of MOVE, what they are about, and their struggle. i'll also be talking a bit about Mumia Abu Jamal, a journalist who covered MOVE and called out incidences of police brutality. in 1981 he was wrongfully imprisoned for not killing a police officer. there was evidence to prove that he couldn't possibly have done it, but he's been on death row since 81.

should be a good one- catch it all tonight at 6!

alley