MOVE

MOVE

Abstract

It was a standoff years in the making at 6221 Osage Avenue — the headquarters of a group called MOVE. The neighbors were fed up. The cops had warrants. And the members of the extremist back-to-nature organization had barricaded themselves inside. Their demand? Justice for nine MOVE members incarcerated — wrongly, some say — for the 1978 murder of Officer James Ramp. On May 13, 1985, shots rang out. Bystanders — including a young Michael Nutter — took cover. And then, as the sun began to set, a police helicopter flew in and released a bag filled with explosives onto the headquarters, making ours the only American city ever to drop a bomb on its own citizens. At the end of the day, 61 houses blazed, and 11 people — five of them children — died, the nightmarish images forever burned into Philadelphia's consciousness.

MOVE

Introduction

On May 13, 1985, the city of Philadelphia under former Mayor Wilson Goode dropped a bomb on a row house in a black residential neighborhood. The fire that resulted claimed the lives of eleven MOVE members, six adults and five children. Of the civil suits filed in the wake of the bombing, all but three have been settled; and after 11 years the three remaining are now in court. There is the suit for the death of MOVE founder John Africa, co-administered by his sister LaVerne Africa, and his brother Dennis Leaphart, Joining in this suit are two other sisters, Muriel Williams, and Louise James Africa, (this writer,) and another brother, Wayne Leaphart. There is an individual suit brought by this writer for the death of my son Frank Africa. The remaining suit has been filed by Remona Africa, the only adult survivor of the fire. MOVE was a radical cult-like group that preached revolution, advocating a return to nature and a society without government, police or technology. The group took up residence on Osage Avenue, a quiet tree-lined street of tidy row houses. Except for the MOVE house, the windows and doors of 6221 Osage Ave. were barricaded with plywood. The group hoarded weapons, built a giant wooden bunker on the roof and used a bullhorn to scream obscenities all hours of the night. Frustrated neighbors turned to city officials for help. On the morning of May 13, 1985, dozens of Philadelphia police, fire fighters and city officials amassed around the MOVE house to force the group out. A standoff ensued, as MOVE members bunkered down inside the house exchanged gunfire with police outside. At 5:30 that evening, a Philadelphia police helicopter dropped a bomb onto the roof of the house in an effort to drive MOVE members out.

Discussion and Analysis

On May 13, 1985, when MOVE, a small group of African American religious radicals, refused to surrender to local authorities and vacate their headquarters in a black middle-class neighborhood in Philadelphia, all hell literally broke loose. In retaliation for the group's act of defiance, the Philadelphia police force fired some 10,000 rounds of ammunition at ...