Pam Africa honored at 60th birthday bash

Pam Africa blows out birthday candles.

Hundreds of activists from the New York region and other areas of the United States gathered at Salem United Methodist Church in Harlem Nov. 18 to celebrate the 60th birthday of the leader of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, MOVE member Pam Africa.

The standing-room-only crowd listened to moving accolades from many activists who have worked with Pam Africa, especially around the struggle to free death-row political prisoner Abu-Jamal since 1982.

Included on the program were several generations of the back-to-nature, communal MOVE organization who since the late 1970s have suffered racist repression, including killings and incarceration, at the hands of the Philadelphia police and federal government.

Pam Africa in the middle of her family.

Those who paid tribute to Pam Africa included Elombe Brath, Ramona Africa, New York City Councilmember Charles Barron, Suzanne Ross, Monica Moorehead, Viola Plummer, Alton Maddox, Panama Alba, Lynne Stewart, Brenda Stokely, Rosemari Mealy, Steve Bloom, Herman Ferguson, Iyaluua Ferguson, Ray LaForest and Sally O’Brien.

Audio birthday greetings from Abu-Jamal and former political prisoner Fred Hampton Jr. were played. Cultural presentations were provided by the Welfare Poets, Ngoma, Louis Reyes-Rivera and Seeds of Wisdom, the MOVE youth group.

The moderators of the program were Camille Yarborough, cultural artist, and Orie Ross, MOVE supporter and member of the New York Free Mumia Coalition, which sponsored the event.

—Report and photos by Monica Moorehead