Speech by Abdul-Aliy Muhammad,
Weds., April 28, 2021,
Rally and March at Univ. of Penn Museum.
Ona move. Say the names: Tree Africa and Delisha Africa. Let’s take a moment of silence. This is heavy, right? Heavy.
It was beyond enough when we found out that Penn had the remains of 53 people, believe to have been enslaved, 51 of them from Cuba, from a plantation […] and 2 of them from Black people from the U.S. And they had some of these encrania from enslaved people, indigenous people, in a glass display case in an anthropology course at the museum.
At that moment when I heard that information I was so upset.
… transcription coming soon …
Dr. Alan Mann worked with the Philadelphia’s Medical Examiner’s office (his assistant was PhD. student Janet Monge). He worked one and a half days for a total of $300. That work was supposed to end and his official engagement with these remains be over.
Mayor Goode establishes a MOVE Commission that hires another forensic pathologist from Delaware, Dr. Hameli. Dr. Hameli took the remains from the MOVE bombing and identified all five children and six adults [all the victims]. [However,] Dr. Mann thought Tree’s remains were those of a young adult, not a 14-year-old, and he couldn’t identify Delisha’s remains either. [Tree and Delisha were the daughters of imprisoned MOVE member Consuewella Africa.]
Mann contradicts Hameli’s claims in the press thus stopping the giving of these sacred remains to family.
Then, Dr. Hameli re-examines the remains and re-affirms his initial report, and that the bones Dr. Mann could not identify were definately those of Delisha and Tree Africa. The MOVE Commission tells the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office to “release these bons according to your regular procedures.”
The mom’s of the children were in prison, so non-MOVE outside families were given remains–except for Tree’s family, which had a symbolic ceremony in November 1985, because the City of Philadelphia had yet to give them the remains.
Tree’s remains were finally released in December 1985. The Medical Examiner’s office was supposed to hand over all the remains.
The funderal for Tree, and her sister Netta, was a joint funeral held on Dec. 14, 1985, by outside family [the mother, Consuewella Africa, was in prison]. The family believed they buried Tree on December 14, 1985.
No one claimed the remains of Delisha Africa because family were incarcerated [said the City], so the City of gave the remains of Delisha Africa to a politician who owned a funeral home. He buried these remains in 1986.
Why is it @ 35 years after Tree’s murder by the State that Dr. Janet Monge is holding up the remainns of Tree in a Coursera class on anthropology (in 2019)?
Parts of their [Delisha and Tree’s] sacred bodies were held n a lab in a box! And Drs. Mann and Morge carried their remains like a game of academic hot potato [to different universities they worked at].
This is disgusting. This is gross. This is not normal. This is not right. This is not okay. [pause]
Monge has to be fired. I stand firm in the demands of MOVE. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Additionally, like Mike Africa Jr. said, some type of restitution has to happen. There must be payment. There must be accountability. There will be accountability. Because Tree Africa and Delisha Africa deserve sacred rest.
We’re talking about people. Children who were closely held and loved.
(Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)