The African People’s Socialist Party remembers Delbert Orr Africa

By APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela

Uhuru (Freedom)!

On behalf of the African People’s Socialist Party, we would like to extend our profound condolences to the Comrades, friends and family of Comrade Brother Delbert Orr Africa.

Brother Delbert died on Monday, June 15, 2020, after a two-year battle with prostate and bone cancer. Delbert was a warrior who, long before cancer, was engaged in a life-long battle for his freedom.

Delbert was a member of the MOVE 9 and a survivor of the colonial attack on the MOVE family in 1985. He also survived the direct attack of two colonial police officers kicking him in the head.

Delbert was sentenced to serve for 30 years to life in prison for a crime he did not commit; he served 42 years before being released on January 18, 2020.

MOVE, short for “The Movement,” was an African liberation group founded by John Africa in 1972.

The organization lived in collectives in West Philadelphia of Pennsylvania and would organize demonstrations expressing their disunity with the conditions of the black community as well as other colonial contradictions.

MOVE was attacked by the Philadelphia police in a bombing on May 13, 1985, that took the lives of 11 Africans, including five children.

Seven years before, on August 8, 1978, members of the MOVE organization were victims of a shoot-in by the Philadelphia police after the police raided their home, armed to the teeth, as part of an ongoing campaign of harassment.

Nine of the MOVE members, which included Delbert Africa, were charged with the murder of a police officer.

Delbert Africa in Powelton Village in 1978

Delbert Africa, along with other warriors of the MOVE 9 family, was a defender of freedom.

We hold high the courageous Delbert Orr Africa and will remember him as an African martyr.

Uhuru!

No Compromise! No Surrender!

Long Live the MOVE 9!

Long Live Delbert Africa!