THE SURVIVORS

Ramona Africa

Age in 1985: 29
Current age: 69

Ramona was twenty-nine when she escaped the burning house on May 13, 1985. She was the only adult to survive. She was immediately arrested.

She was charged with riot, conspiracy, and multiple related offenses. She was convicted. She served seven years in prison—seven years for surviving a bombing.

When she was released in 1992, Ramona became a full-time MOVE advocate. For thirty-three years now, she’s traveled the country telling the story, demanding justice for the eleven who died, demanding release for the MOVE 9, demanding accountability from officials who escaped it.

She’s 69 years old now. She remembers. She testifies. She refuses to let the city forget.

Ramona Africa survived the fire. She’s spent thirty-three years surviving the aftermath.

Michael Moses Ward “Birdie Africa”

Age in 1985: 13
Died: September 28, 2013, age 41

Birdie was thirteen when he escaped the flames on May 13, 1985. He was the only child to survive.

In the aftermath, he was placed in foster care, separated from MOVE. He struggled with trauma, with survivor’s guilt, with the weight of being the living reminder of five dead children.

He gave interviews over the years. He described the fire, the fear, the escape. He described nightmares that never stopped.

In 2013, Michael Moses Ward died at age 41. Cause of death was listed as officially “undetermined,” but friends and family cited health issues and trauma related to the bombing.

Birdie Africa survived May 13, 1985. But he didn’t survive what May 13, 1985 did to him.

He was thirteen when they dropped the bomb. He was forty-one when it finally killed him. Took twenty-eight years, but it killed him just as surely as it killed the others.

The bombing claimed twelve lives, not eleven. Just took longer for the last one.

WHAT THEIR NAMES MEAN

In Birmingham, when I was a boy, people told us to forget. Told us to move on. Told us dwelling on the past wasn’t healthy.

But then they put up monuments to Confederate generals. Then they named schools after people who fought to keep us enslaved. Then they asked us to honor their dead while forgetting ours.

I learned early: names are power. Memory is resistance. Documentation is love.

Addie Mae Collins. Cynthia Wesley. Carole Robertson. Denise McNair. I learned their names at eleven years old. I’m seventy-one now. I’ll know their names until I die.

Katricia “Tree” Dotson Africa. Delisha Orr Africa. Netta Africa. Little Phil Africa. Tomaso Africa.

I learned their names at thirty-one. I’m seventy-one now. I’ll know their names until I die.

Their names mean: this happened.
Their names mean: people died.
Their names mean: no one was held accountable.
Their names mean: we refuse to forget.

When officials escape justice, documentation becomes justice. When courts fail, memory becomes the court. When institutions protect their own, we become the institution that protects the dead.

Tree. Delisha. Netta. Little Phil. Tomaso.

Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Thirteen. Nine.

Say their names. Write their names. Remember their names.

Because when we forget the names, we forget it happened. When we forget it happened, we allow it to happen again.