About MOVE
MOVE: Belief and Practice
The MOVE Organization is a family of strong, serious, deeply committed revolutionaries founded by a wise, perceptive, strategically minded Black man named JOHN AFRICA. The principle of our belief is explained in a collection of writings we call “The Guidelines,” authored by JOHN AFRICA. To honor our beloved Founder, and acknowledge the wisdom and strength He has given us, we say “LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!”
OUR RELIGION – LIFE
JOHN AFRICA taught us that Life is the priority. Nothing is more important or as important as Life, the force that keeps us alive. All life comes from one source, from God, MOM NATURE, MOMA. Each individual life is dependent on every other life, and all life has a purpose, so all living beings, things that move, are equally important, whether they are human beings, dogs, birds, fish, trees, ants, weeds, rivers, wind or rain. To stay healthy and strong, life must have clean air, clear water and pure food. If derived of these things, life will cycle to the next level, or as the system says, “die.”
NATURAL LAW
We believe in Natural Law, the government of self. Man-made laws are not really laws, because they don’t apply equally to everyone and they contain exceptions and loopholes. Man-made laws are constantly being amended or repealed. Natural Law stays the same and always has. Man’s laws require police, sheriffs, armies, and courts to enforce them, and lawyers to explain them. True law is self explanatory and self enforcing. In the undisturbed jungles, oceans, and deserts of the world, there are no courtrooms or jails. The animals and plants don’t need them. No living being has to consult a law book to be able to know if they have to cough, sneeze, or urinate. Natural Law says that when you see something getting too close to your eye, you will blink, whether you are a German Shepherd or a Supreme Court Justice.
SELF DEFENSE
All living things instinctively defend themselves. This is a God-given right of all life. If a man goes into a bear’s cave, he violates and threatens the bear’s place of security. The bear will defend his home by instinctively fighting off the man and eliminating him. The bear is not wrong, because self defense is right.
RIGHT AND WRONG
The fact that something is legal under the system’s laws, doesn’t make it right. Slavery was legal. Killing Native Americans and stealing their land was all done legally. JOHN AFRICA taught us that what is right applies equally, across the board. If something is right, it’s right for all of life, with no separations.
THE SYSTEM
We don’t believe in this reform world system – the government, the military, industry and big business. They have historically abused, raped and bartered life for the sake of money. These rulers and policy makers don’t care who they kill, enslave, cripple, poison or disease in their quest for money. They have made material wealth a priority over life. Marvels of science and technological so-called advancements all stem from the system’s greed for money and disrespect for life. But a person who is suffocating or drowning doesn’t call out for diamonds, gold, or wads of money. The person will do all in their power for a breath of air, because air is a necessity and money is worthless. Over the last century, industry has raped the earth of countless tons of minerals, bled billions of gallons of oil from the ground, and enslaved millions of people to manufacture cars, trucks, planes and trains that further pollute the air with their use. And because of the billions of dollars in profits to be made, the system will favor artificial transportation over the legs and feet Mama gave us to walk and run with. Big business and industry are responsible for the mass production and mass marketing of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, which are used to extract further profits from people while keeping them sick and addicted. Politicians are put in place to legalize, endorse, and protect industry and big business, therefore we don’t believe in politics at all.
MOVE’S WORK
MOVE’s work is revolution. JOHN AFRICA’s revolution, a revolution to stop man’s system from imposing on life, to stop industry from poisoning the air, water, and soil and to put an end to the enslavement of all life. Our work is to show people how rotten and enslaving this system is and that the system is the cause of homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, alcoholism, racism, domestic abuse, AIDS, crime, war, all the problems of the world. We are working to demonstrate that people not only can fight this system, they must fight they system if they ever want to free themselves from endless suffering and oppression.
BEING A REVOLUTIONARY
Revolution starts with the individual. It starts with a person making a personal commitment to do what’s right. You can’t turn someone into a revolutionary by making them chant slogans or wave guns. To understand revolution, you must be sound. Revolution is not imposed upon another, it is kindled within them. A person can talk about revolution, but if they are still worshiping money, or putting drugs into their body, or beating their mate, they obviously haven’t committed themselves to doing what’s right. Revolution is not a philosophy, it is an activity.
PERSECUTION
We are a deeply religious organization. We know that the current political system resents our clean, righteous example and wants to stop us from exposing their corruption even if they have to kill us. Just as Jesus was labeled a radical and persecuted to death by politicians of his day for what he said, we know how threatening our message is to those in power and why they come down so hard on us. We expect it and we are prepared for it.
THE DURATION OF THE STRUGGLE
We don’t measure our success with reference to a calendar. As long as we do what’s right, the only way things can turn out is right, regardless of time. We are not anxious or impatient and we will not compromise our principle for quick, temporary results. We don’t necessarily expect to see a dramatic change in this system in our lifetime or our children’s lifetime. We know that many hundreds of years of degeneration and imposition will take many hundreds of years to correct, but the initial turning of the tide has to start somewhere. JOHN AFRICA began that process through the MOVE Organization. LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!
LEADERS
Our organization was founded by JOHN AFRICA, however, he is not our leader. JOHN AFRICA has equipped each of us with the wisdom, strength, and understanding to lead ourselves. Using the strategy of JOHN AFRICA, we know we can’t fail. Everything that happens to us happens a certain way, because it’s supposed to.
LIVING AS A REVOLUTIONARY FAMILY
All committed MOVE members take the last name “Africa” out of reverence for our Founder JOHN AFRICA, and to show that we are a family, a unified body moving in one direction. We have Black, White, Puerto Rican members from upper and lower class backgrounds, both college and street (mis)educated. While we do not heed the system’s legal institution of marriage, we do adhere to the natural law that requires one male and one female to mate and produce new life. We are monogamous. JOHN AFRICA taught us that childbearing is a natural, instinctive function of a mother and requires no drugs or hospital stays.
OUR CHILDREN
We dearly love our children. We protect them and watch over them so they will become healthier and stronger than we ourselves. We are all one family and all the adults help to look after the kids. We don’t punish them through beatings or physical abuse. If they do something wrong, the whole family takes part in giving them direction and showing them what’s right. We don’t send them off to school for the system’s brainwashing and indoctrination. We stay close to our children and they stay close to us.
APPEARANCE
Our hair is left the way nature intended, uncombed and uncut. Though we don’t favor using the system’s chemicals, cosmetics, and disposable conveniences, we do spend a good deal of time keeping ourselves and our surroundings clean and tidy. We dress functionally, in clothing that doesn’t interfere with our active lives.
RAW FOOD AND DISTORTION
The diet of JOHN AFRICA gave us consists of fresh raw food. We always keep plenty of wholesome raw food on hand and eat whenever our bodies tell us to, not according to artificial meal-time standards. We make sure no one around us goes hungry, because we know that good food is an essential requirement of life. We acknowledge that some of us were raised on the system’s food, or “distortion”- as we call it. Doing the work we do can also put us under a lot of pressure when parent and child or husband and wife are separated by the system’s oppression. So it is not uncommon to see some of use eating cooked food on occasion. However, you will never see a committed MOVE member use drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol. The hundreds of miles that the system has placed between us and some of our brothers and sisters in distant prisons has also forced us to use cars to maintain the close contact our family is used to. But we look forward to the day when we can live together the way we want to, without a need for air-polluting technology.
CARING FOR LIFE
To keep ourselves healthy and strong, we rely on plenty of exercise as well as good hard physical labor. Scrubbing floors, sweeping walks, and running dogs are daily tasks. Maintaining the hundreds of pounds of food we keep stocked is a big job, too. We have seeds for the birds, nuts for the squirrels, raw meat for the dogs and cats, and fruits and vegetables for the people. We love all life. It is tremendously upsetting for us to see someone mistreat an animal and we will take immediate action to stop anyone from beating a dog, throwing stones at birds, or causing similar impositions on innocent life.
THE NAME MOVE
The word MOVE is not an acronym. It means exactly what it says: MOVE, work, generate, be active. Everything that’s alive moves. If it didn’t, it would be stagnant, dead. Movement is the principle of Life, and because MOVE’s belief is Life, our Founder, JOHN AFRICA, gave us the name “MOVE.” When we greet each other, we say “ON THE MOVE!”
“THE POWER OF TRUTH IS FINAL”
– JOHN AFRICA