Men of the Cloth
Pam Africa, minister and disciple of the teaching of John Africa, tells the true tale of a meeting between the latter and a man of the cloth behind the old headquarters of the MOVE Organization in the Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia.
The scene: a man, middle-aged, bearded, booted and blue-jeaned, is called to the back door by the leader of a small group from a nearby church. Though both are black, they present a fascinating tableau of difference. The one wears a T-shirt, sweat soaking his breast; the other is impeccably dressed in silk suit and tie, the only touch missing is coattails. The one's hair is rough, gray-fringed, uncombed, and hanging like ropes to his shoulders; the other's is pomaded, greased and brushed smooth -- the head of a preacher-man.
The air is thick and charged with controversy, for the city is threatening to remove MOVE from their property and the neighborhood after a series of highly publicized confrontations with the police that has left several MOVE men and women beaten and bloody, and one MOVE baby dead.
"So, you're sayin', all I gotta do is pray, and everything will be all right?"
"That's what I'm saying, brotha."
"If I pray, the cops will stop beatin' up my people?"
"Yes! That's what I'm saying, brotha."
"If I pray the cops will stop killin' us?"
"Yes! Pray -- in Jesus name, brother -- 'cause the Bible say, 'Ask, and it shall be given unto you.' That's it, brother."
"And if I pray, our people will truly be free?"
"Uh-huh. Yessir, brother!"
"Well, c'mon, Reverend. Let's pray then."
John Africa drops to his knees, oblivious of the soft mud already staining his jeans.
"Whoa! Whatcha doin', brotha?"
"You said we needa pray, right?"
"Uhh ... uhh ... "
"Come on, Rev, pray with me, okay?"
"I ... I ... I meant, pray in the church."
"Why, Reverend? Ain't God out here in the open air, ain't God all around us? Come on! Let's kneel down here on God's earth and pray."
At this point the Reverend backs up, and John Africa says, "What's the matter? I thought you said we should pray. Well, come on down here and pray with me."
The Reverend continues to stand there, staring. John Africa asks again, "What's the matter, man? That suit you got on more important than God? I thought you said you believed in God. This dirt is God, so why don't you kneel down here and pray with me?"
"Well, uh ... excuse me, brotha, but I gotta be getting back to my church."
At this point the people standing around the two men begin to speak: "You see that! That man is down there on his knees in the dirt; he got to be for real. That Reverend ain't nothin' but a phoney. He scared he gonna dirty his suit. He talkin' 'bout how he believe in God. He don't believe in nothin' but that suit."
One woman comments to another, "That preacher's a hypocrite. See, that's why I don't go to church, cuz I don't believe in them preachers, cuz they ain't nothin' but liars; they ain't for real. That man there kneelin' in the dirt is for real."
John Africa goes on, "You don't wanna pray with me, then, Rev?"
"I gotta go, man, uhh ... I'm sorry."
"Why you leavin', Rev?"
The dashing preacher beats a hasty retreat from the muddy yard, more intent, it seems, on saving silk than souls ...
Several years later, and several miles westward, the city would torch MOVE's home and headquarters with a helicopter-borne firebomb, incinerating John Africa and ten other "longhairs" (some of them women and children) in a massacre plotted to take place on Mother's Day.
The scene: smoldering remains of an entire neighborhood, only hours before the site of a blistering, billowing inferno. Philadelphia's men of the cloth have gathered once again, though only to examine the carnage -- not to weep for the fallen, nor to pray for the dead.
They have come bedecked in robes and collars, the purpose of their gathering to pray in support of the mayor of a city that has bombed its own citizens, and obliterated, incinerated, and dismembered its own babies.
The police commissioner, the fire chief, the mayor, and his officers are almost to a man "Christian" -- Baptists or Catholics, most of them -- religious people. Yet these men who have gathered to pray are not only churchgoers. They are ministers, pastors, priests! Aside from praying, though, it seems that they mean to do little. Why should they? They've just winked at a full-scale war waged over mere misdemeanors: at the deaths of eleven people blasted by a sky-bomb, the destruction of dozens of homes, and the permanent scarring of a neighborhood.
And so they pray and leave for home, their duties fulfilled. Men of the cloth, yes. But men of the spirit?