Meet Our Team
![](https://themoveactivistarchive.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/mike.jpg?w=400)
Mike Africa, Jr.
Executive Director
Mike Africa, Jr. is a revolutionary activist on a mission to preserve the historical legacy of the MOVE Organization. Born in a jail cell to MOVE members Debbie and Mike Africa—recently released after serving 40 years in prison for a crime they did not commit—at age 6 the police dropped a bomb on his family, and by age 13 he started working to free his parents.
![](https://themoveactivistarchive.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/krystal.jpeg)
Krystal Strong, Ph.D
Archive Director
Dr. Krystal Strong is a scholar, community organizer, and Philadelphian. As an assistant professor of Black Studies in Education at Rutgers University, her research and teaching focus on student and community activism, youth, global Black social movements, and education in Africa and the African Diaspora. She is a core organizer with Black Lives Matter Philly where her political work centers educational justice, abolition, and Pan-African solidarity.
![](https://themoveactivistarchive.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/mo-1.jpg?w=640)
Monique Perry
Producer, Editor, and Videographer
Monique Perry is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation research provides a qualitative investigation into how sexuality education is showing up in three urban middle schools. Through a multi-site case study, her research investigates sexuality education, explicitly or implicitly, in cross-curricular ways from health, humanities, and STEM. She is a long-term Philly resident, educator, and community organizer.
![](https://themoveactivistarchive.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/max.jpg?w=968)
Max Johnson Dugan
Technical Lead
Max Dugan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on Islamic material and visual culture, embodiment, and emotions. His dissertation examines Halal consumption in Philadelphia using a combination of ethnographic and digital humanistic methods in order to understand how Islamic traditions, racialization, and the contingencies of urban life give halal consumer goods their purchase.
![](https://themoveactivistarchive.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/me.jpeg?w=720)
Safaya Smallwood
Research and Design Lead
Safaya Smallwood is a bachelor’s candidate in Political Science and Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on revolutionary social movements, studying the intersections between postcolonialism, decolonization, Black revolutionary history, and Marxism/anarchism.
COLLABORATORS
Justin Acheampong – Student Researcher
Taryn Flaherty – Student Researcher
Naima Small – Student Researcher
Ruqaiyyah Lucas-Caldwell – Student Researcher
Wes Matthews – Student Researcher
Isaiah Woods-Kolsky – Student Researcher
Supporters
Ivy Williams
Dr. Sheena Sood
Dr. Christina Jackson
Thank You To Our Partners and Supporters
Remember Black Philly
Re/Member Black Philadelphia is a multimodal digital scholarship and community archiving project that investigates increasingly endangered contexts of Black social and cultural life and community-driven memory work against the backdrop of systematic displacement.
Archives for Black Lives
Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia is a volunteer-run collective of archivists, librarians, and professionals working to end the erasure of Black lives in historical archives. They are dedicated to advocating for just policies around records of police violence, affirming the importance of documenting Black lives in the historical record, and acknowledging the need to make the archival profession more inclusive of archivists of color. We are especially grateful to: Jenn Garcon, Faith Charlton, Beaudry Allen, Caitlin Rizzo, and Alex Palma.
West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
The West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance is a community organization dedicated to cultivating interest and support for the arts in West Philly by promoting the community’s cultural resources, encouraging the development of local artists, and invigorating positive social change through the arts.
Paul Robeson House and Museum
Paul Robeson House and Museum is an arts and cultural center, and the former home of renowned Black actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson. From 1966 to 1976, Robeson, an internationally celebrated bass baritone concert singer, actor of film and stage, All-American and professional athlete, writer, multilingual orator, human rights activist, and lawyer, resided in the house, which after his death was converted into a cultural center and museum by the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.
Price Lab for the Digital Humanities
With special gratitude to Stewart Varner.