Biography
Ramona Africa is the only adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 Philadelphia police bombing of the MOVE house at 6221 Osage Avenue. On the day of the assault, Philadelphia police fired more than 10,000 rounds into the house and then dropped a satchel of C-4 and Tovex on the roof from a state police helicopter. The resulting fire killed 11 MOVE members, including five children and MOVE founder John Africa, and destroyed 61 homes in the surrounding Black middle-class neighborhood. As fellow MOVE members tried to escape the burning house, police fired on them; Ramona Africa survived only because Birdie Africa (the only child to survive) and she made it through the back alley.
Despite being one of the surviving victims of what remains the only aerial bombing of an American city by its own government, she was the only person ever tried in connection with the events. She was charged with riot and conspiracy and convicted in 1986; offered parole repeatedly on the condition that she sever all contact with MOVE, she refused and served the entire seven-year sentence at SCI Muncy. Released in 1992, she became the central spokesperson for the MOVE 9 prisoners and for accountability for the bombing. In 1996 a federal jury found the city of Philadelphia liable for excessive force and unlawful seizure and awarded her $500,000.
MOVE’s retrospective account names Judge Michael Stiles and prosecutor Joseph McGill in Ramona’s riot/conspiracy prosecution and gives a sixteen-month-to-seven-year nominal sentence. It explicitly dates release to May 13, 1992 after the maximum seven years because she refused a no-association-with-MOVE parole condition. It describes her subsequent public speaking and civil-rights lawsuit against city officials, with a February 1996 European speaking tour alongside Sue and Carlos. Allegations that police fired at people leaving the burning house are MOVE’s attributed account, not newly adjudicated findings. 25 Years on the MOVE (May 1996; March 1997 printing), PDF pages 16, 20, 21, 22. Source: https://azinelibrary.org/approved/25-years-move-1.pdf
The Fall 1990 Write Through the Walls directory individually lists this prisoner under historical identifier 7564. This dated source-specific identifier fills the previously blank number field; the listing supplies no new admission, release or completed custody duration. The contact location is historical and does not establish current imprisonment.
The summer 1991 Breakthrough correspondence directory individually names Ramona Johnson Africa at Muncy. This records the contemporary fuller-name variant while preserving her public name Ramona Africa. A historical directory entry supplies no additional admission or physical-release day.
