On the evening of May 13, 1985, longstanding tensions between MOVE, a black liberation group, and the Philadelphia Police Department erupted horrifically. That night, the city of Philadelphia dropped a satchel bomb, a demolition device typically used in combat, laced with Tovex and C-4 explosives on the MOVE organization, who were living in a West Philadelphia rowhome known to be occupied by men, women, and children. It went up in unextinguished flames. Eleven people were killed, including five children and the founder of the organization. Sixty-one homes were destroyed, and more than 250 citizens were left homeless.
MOVE was founded in 1972 and still
exists today, though its membership numbers are unknown. Members lived communally and described themselves as a family, changing their last names to Africa out of reverence for their founder and for the continent. In nonviolent but disruptive demonstrations, members protested at zoos, pet stores, and political rallies; the group believed in composting, homeschooling, and a diet of raw foods, and spoke out against war and police brutality. They maintained a complicated relationship with Philadelphia residents; some sympathized with their mission, while others found their lifestyle to be disruptive.
Members frequently had run-ins with authorities. In 1978, MOVE engaged in a 15-month standoff after then-Mayor Frank Rizzo, notorious for a volatile relationship with black residents and activist groups, ordered the group to be
removed from their home. The confrontation ended in the
death of a police officer for which nine members of MOVE, nicknamed the MOVE 9, were controversially convicted and given life sentences.
Four years later, MOVE relocated to the quiet, largely middle-class African American residence on Osage Avenue. Their neighbors continually complained to the city about trash around their rowhouse, confrontations with residents, and that MOVE members broadcast sometimes obscene political messages by bullhorn. After they’d spent three years on Osage Avenue, then-Mayor Wilson Goode, the first African American mayor of Philadelphia, gave the order to evict them. What began as a door-to-door evacuation of the neighborhood the night before became a violent, day-long ordeal no one in the community could have foreseen.
Only two people survived the bombing — Ramona Africa, then 29, and a child, Birdie Africa, then 13, later known as Michael Moses Ward; both were badly burned. Despite two grand jury investigations, a civil suit, and a commission final report that cited the bombing as “reckless, ill-conceived, and hastily-approved,” no one was ever criminally charged for the attack. Survivor Ramona Africa immediately went on to serve seven years in prison on rioting and conspiracy charges for arrest warrants from before the bombing.
Neighbors returned to shoddy construction in 1986, and by the early 2000s, two-thirds of the neighborhood was bought out by the city. Today, the houses are largely vacant. The bombing, now deemed one of the worst tragedies in the history of Philadelphia, lives on in the memories of the city’s residents. A few years later, the Waco siege standoff between law enforcement and a Texas religious sect would sear itself into the country’s consciousness. The MOVE bombing remains
largely forgotten nationally.