
Ona MOVE-
My name is Merle Africa, disciple of JOHN AFRICA and Minister of Administrative Coordination. I’ve been a member of the MOVE Organization since 1973 and these years have been the most satisfying and happiest I have ever experienced despite the almost twenty years spent in prison and the vicious brutal murder my family experienced at the hands of the system May 13, 1985.
Before joining MOVE, I had relatively the same type of existence as everybody else in the system: I went to schools in Philadelphia, graduated, got a secretarial job at Temple University, but I had plenty of problems with no hope of finding solution for them.
My only so called relief, outlet to these problems, was intoxication. I was an alcoholic from the age of 8 and a habitual drug addict since the age of 15. My father was a heavy drinker and along with other relatives, as a young child they would let me drink from their glasses, “taking a sip” until I had acquired a taste for liquor and as the years past, I drank at home and at friends’ homes until I turned into an alcoholic.
Children are supposed to be happy. I was fat and mentally unstable. I have a sister (who isn’t in MOVE) who I fought constantly, along with my parents because I thought they preferred her to me. I thought they didn’t love me. I didn’t trust them and felt I couldn’t get any relief by talking to them. By the time I entered my teens, I was suffering from severe bouts of depression, hallucination, and paranoia. I was suicidal, went on eating binges and was bulimic. I also suffered from violent outbursts of temper where I’d try to hurt my mom and sister and tried to hurt myself by banging my head on the floor until it bled. I realized now thanks to JOHN AFRICA, frustrated and mentally demolished. I needed love, understanding, and attention as all people do, which I wasn’t getting at home, only vicious abusive beatings from my dad to make me tow the line. That was the only solution he knew because it was the solution his father and mother knew. I didn’t get any relief from talking to psychiatrists and group therapy sessions my mother took me to. I was suicidal because I felt I had no reason to live and when I asked the psychiatrists to explain my purpose in life, they had no answer, their solution was to tell my mom I was too violent, too disturbed to live at home. They considered me dangerous. The doctors didn’t have any solution for me so they kept after her to institutionalized me, which she refused to do. The turning point in my life came when I met MOVE people and started hearing the powerful teaching of JOHN AFRICA.
I felt drawn to MOVE because of the true love, sensitivity, and family unity I saw in MOVE people that I met and eventually from talking to MOVE I started going to study sessions to hear the teaching of JOHN AFRICA, MOVE law. The information I hear is the most powerful, analytical, truthful writing I have ever heard about this system. I was real impressed with the way JOHN AFRICA took the time, had the patience to talk to a mother about her cranky, unruly child or listen to JOHN AFRICA speak at meetings giving a couple a solution to a marital problem they were having whenever any of us was unhappy or troubled. THE COORDINATOR always had the patience, the time to talk to us, give us real solutions to our problems– something no doctor, psychiatrist, minister or parent has ever done for anybody before. I kept going to more and more study sessions and other MOVE activities cause I felt drawn to MOVE law because it is the truth, and unlike other organizations I’ve heard of or read about, I realize JOHN AFRICA’S teaching ain’t just a lot of meaningless rhetoric as the news media has claimed, but there’s uncompromising power in MOVE law and its shown in the family unity, love, and sensitivity I’ve experienced and displayed since being in MOVE.
In the 1960’s I had 2 backroom abortions performed on me. After the 2nd abortion I almost died from loss of blood. After that I was in constant pain and hospitalized for cysts and boils on my tubes and vaginal area. The doctors I went to couldn’t find a cause for the medical problems I was having. When I got in MOVE the trouble continued until JOHN AFRICA told me what was wrong. HE told me I had a tumor in my stomach and it was because of the abortions I had had and I hadn’t told THE COORDINATOR I had abortions, JOHN AFRICA knew what was wrong and told me! HE didn’t examine me like no doctor, but knew the cause of the trouble I was having. THE COORDINATOR told me what to do, how to eat and said in time I would get better. I was in pain, bed-ridden for months at a time and bleeding most of the time. At no time did THE COORDINATOR force me to stay in bed; in fact it was THE COORDINATOR who told me if I wanted to go to the hospital, HE would get one of the men to take me an I told HIM I didn’t want to go, that I trusted HIM and knew from all the examples I’d seen of MOVE people getting better after being sick, or brutally beaten by cops, I knew HE was the only one who could help me. I put my faith in my belief, in JOHN AFRICA to make me better and HE did cause the tumor came out on its own without me ever going back to the hospital for an operation and I’ve never had any more menstrual or stomach problems, no more cysts or boils! Long Live JOHN AFRICA Forever! If it hadn’t been for the healing power of JOHN AFRICA I would have died! There’s no doubt in my mind about that! If I hadn’t been in MOVE, by the time the doctors finished probing and experimenting on me with medicine and gadgets the cancer would have spread to the point where the only thing left for me was to say goodbye to my family cause I didn’t have a chance, but JOHN AFRICA GAVE me my life, GAVE me the opportunity to live for which I am so grateful and its why I am so committed to my belief because it works, I’ve seen, felt MOVE law work for me! Long Live JOHN AFRICA Forever!
Because of this example I know I can always depend on my belief to give me everything I need to keep me healthy, strong and free of mental illness. That’s something nobody can say about anything in this system. I’ve found in MOVE law my reason for living, satisfaction, happiness and that’s what the whole world is searching for and its available for anybody who wants it. After years of being in the system and having bad relationships what left me distrustful and disillusioned, thanks to JOHN AFRICA and our application of MOVE law, I finally have a loyal faithful husband and we have a good strong marriage and that’s something every woman longs for in the system.
When I look back and see how I was before MOVE and how I am now, I can’t help but give my loyalty, my commitment to JOHN AFRICA, because without HIM, I would have died. I feel privileged, blessed to be allowed to be a member of MOVE, to help spread the teaching of JOHN AFRICA to the people of the world; to give them the motivation, the will to stop endorsing this system and start fighting it and take back all that it’s taken from us!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA FOREVER!
On March 13, 1998 our revolutionary sister, Merle Africa, passed while incarcerated at Muncy Correctional Institution. The cause of her death is highly suspicious. Prison officials first stated that she died of natural causes, but there is nothing natural about a woman in her 40s dying, who is incredibly healthy due to her adherence to JOHN AFRICA’S teachings. Prison authorities then stated she had cancer. Regardless of the prison’s story of what stole Merle’s life, there is absolutely NO QUESTION that if she had been at home with her family, living freely, eating naturally, and exercising in accord with natural law, she would still be with us. Her family remembers her and her example of strength and love for LIFE!
Merle’s passing crystallizes the need to return the MOVE 9 home! They have been serving prison sentences since 1978 for a crime they could not have possibly committed. Before the system kills anymore revolutionaries, they need to come home. Any sentence to prison is a death sentence. The only thing that has countered their long years in prison has been JOHN AFRICA’s teachings of LIFE, which has kept the MOVE 9 free regardless of any prison bars.