Puga Does Dallas

Michael Davis would like you to know him as Mike Africa Jr. — a name invented by the MOVE cult to hide members from accountability, confuse law enforcement and child protective services, and erase personal identity.

Inside MOVE, he’s PUGA. In his book, he claims he was called “Makita,” like his father in the cult. That’s not nostalgia — that’s a cover story to bury the nickname he hates most. In MOVE, having multiple names isn’t quirky — it’s strategy. The more aliases, the harder it is to track the truth.

Secret MOVE member–turned–convicted cop-killer–turned–“political prisoner” journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal knew Puga and listed him by that name in the acknowledgments of his 1995 first book, Live from Death Row.

That acknowledgment — alongside other MOVE members and children — is proof Mumia wasn’t a mere “supporter” but a member who knew the children and how they were being “raised.”

I also have medical records from January 1980, when MOVE children were pulled out by Child Protective Services in Richmond, Virginia, with the name Puga written by doctors. For years, I concealed his cult identity — as I did for all surviving victims — out of respect for privacy. Because I’ve always considered all the MOVE children, including Puga, to be victims of Vincent Leaphart, the uncle of his mother, Debbie (Sims) Davis. My sympathy and outrage over what was done to them by Vincent, MOVE leaders, and the adults around them has never changed.

But sympathy for what happened to a child victim doesn’t mean silence when that victim grows up and chooses to perpetuate the same lies that allowed for, and contributed to, harm.

At almost 47 years old, Puga is not standing with the other child victims of Vincent’s MOVE cult — victims who include his own sister, his nieces and nephews, and even his own children. Instead, he’s overshadowing them, silencing them, and positioning himself to inherit the MOVE “throne” and using the public and people with influence to do it.

First two images are celebrating a movie or tv project with Producers Tom Heller Tina Elmo, Actress Regina Hall and Director Lee Daniels - with Puga and his parents. The last image is of Puga with Colin Kapernick who booked Puga to speak with children attending his Know Your Rights Camp in Philadelphia.

If Puga is going to talk about MOVE (and demand payment for it), he should do it honestly. Otherwise, he’s simply the next Cuncle Vincent — and doing it knowingly, deliberately, and deceptively.

This weekend is a perfect example: a Lone Star State traveling sales pitch wrapped in the language of liberation, designed to sell the same recycled lies in a new ZIP code. Yesterday it was Houston. Tonight it’s Dallas.

Puga’s Facebook post opens with “Hey Dallas Fam.” That’s not warmth — that’s emotional manipulation. Cult experts call it manufactured intimacy: make strangers feel like family so they’ll hand over their time, attention, and money.

As I post this, Puga — in full-blown Main Character Syndrome — is taking the floor in Dallas for his Mike Africa Jr. performance: the same pre-packaged cult schtick he’s been peddling for decades, hoping someone in the very small audience will shell out $30 for his book or $35 for a T-shirt straight out of his suitcase.

I wish I were there to ask: “Hey Puga, what’s your response to the podcast Murder at Ryans Run — and to your own family members saying MOVE is a cult that abused them, and that you’re lying about it?”

Since I am not, I can only hope that someone else will, if not tonight then at the next Puga Performance - because there will always be one.