Rant About Daily News Coverage

(Mike Africa at MOVE Headquarters days before John Gilbride's murder)

After reading the meticulous coverage by the Philadelphia Daily News of the “25 Anniversary of MOVE”, I was struck by the fact that there was not one mention, one blurb, nothing to remind readers of the murder of John Gilbride that occurred on Sept 27th, 2002.

Osage Avenue is pretty far from Maple Shade New Jersey, but it isn’t that far.

With the ashes of Osage Avenue buried beneath shoddy, poorly constructed replicas of the 60 homes that were burnt down on May, 13 a quarter of a century ago, “The Daily News” casts a glance backwards. I commend them for doing so. However the fact that they ignored the ongoing tragedy that is the still “unsolved” murder of John Gilbride and the abuse of children in MOVE’s midst is cause for concern.

I kind of expected as much.

While I have yet to talk to a journalist yet who did not candidly admit to me that MOVE at least made it seem like they had executed John in front of his apartment building eight years ago, very few have seen fit to try and tackle the issue head on. And it is not that I totally blame them either. Dealing with MOVE under the best of circumstances is potentially unpleasant work and besides you aren’t going to get much in the way of truth out of them anyways. You will get the same “anti-technology” game that the more articulate members of the group have been running on people since MOVE was spawned out of the damaged mind of John Africa and the collapse of 60’s radicalism.

MOVE must be drinking up all of the attention that they are getting. Granted it could be considered “negative” attention, but what the fuck, isn’t that the kind of attention that MOVE has been getting since its inception? There is not a group on the face of the earth that sucks up negativity like MOVE does. That kind of thing coarses through veins and keeps hearts hardened I suppose. After all, it is not like anyone is out there really asking Ramona Africa hard questions. I am not counting on anyone asking why child-rape is acceptable, encouraged, and indeed forced on girls in MOVE as young as 11-12 years old in the group. I would like to hope that someone would ask someone in MOVE why those same girls are not afforded any semblance of a proper education, but after all, those questions are hardly pertinent to the “Anniversary of the Bombing”. It is probably more appropriate to ask me what kind of appliances MOVE members have in their house. Maybe next year the Daily News could try and find out what Ramona Africa has on her motherfin I-Pod. Perhaps “The Roof is on Fire”?


With the ashes of Osage Avenue buried beneath shoddy, poorly constructed replicas of the 60 homes that were burnt down on May, 13 a quarter of a century ago, members of the media cast a glance backwards and rightfully so. They should be commended for really digging deep and telling the truth about the things that MOVE subjected people to on Osage Avenue, the Police and firefighters on Powelton, and numerous other people whose lives have been damaged by MOVE over the years. I sincerely think that the Daily News did a good job on those things.

However, when I think of MOVE I do not just think of the violence and pain of the distant past, but also the injustices that continue. The un-avenged apparitions of John Gilbride and whomever else MOVE buried or tossed in rivers once those people were of no use to “John Africa’s Revolution” need a voice.

Don’t count on the media to be that voice.

Send a letter to the Philadelphia Daily News to remind them what happened to John Gilbride at

views@phillynews.com