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.
