Its been 34 years since the unspeakable and dastardly bombing of the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Almost two generations have passed since the government sanctioned killings took place. In the aftermath, 65 homes were destroyed and 11 people were killed, including 5 children.
A lot of people outside of Philadelphia never heard of the bombing in the black residential neighborhood of Cobbs Creek. But it happened. The Ganster Mayor Wilson Goode and his Consigliere Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor had classified MOVE as a terrorist organization. Yep, the city government said the pro African American organization was the same as ISIS. The name Move is not an acronym. The group was founded by John Africa, whose birth name was Vincent Leaphart and Donald Glassey in 1972.
Now as much as we would like to think the 70’s was the beginning of “racial enlightenment, it was not. Just look at our President, who in 1973 was sued by HUD because he refused to allow African Americans in his apartments. It was just 10 years earlier that 4 black children were blown apart by 4 angry fully loaded, hard racist in Birmingham Alabama at the 16th Street Baptist Church. It shouldn’t surprise you that they blew up a house full of men, women and children. The resulting blast left scores homeless and destroyed a vibrant black community.
Now, I am going to be the first to tell you some of the people they blew up were not angels. In 1977, the police under Mayor Frank Rizzo obtained a court order requiring MOVE to vacate their Powelton Village house at 311 N 33rd Street. The group had begun to occupy the residence, and it was not long before MOVE’s living style exhausted their neighbors’ patience. MOVE members made a treaty with the police. They agreed to move out of the premises and surrender their weapons if the police released their members who were held in city jails. The police held up their end of the deal, but MOVE members failed to comply. A year later when police entered the abode to serve a warrant a police officer was killed. Although MOVE said the officer who was killed was facing the building, meaning the shot came from behind him, they were nonetheless charged with his murder. There was a big trial. The members who had been charged were called the MOVE9. To make a long story short, they were all convicted of 3rd degree murder and given the maximum sentence of 100 years each. Of the nine people convicted, 3 died in prison, 2 have been released on parole and the other 4 remain incarcerated.
In 1981 MOVE relocated to a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue in the Cobbs Creek area of West Philadelphia. Neighbors complained to the city for years about trash around their building, confrontations with neighbors, and that MOVE members were broadcasting sometimes obscene political messages by bullhorn. I think it was the messages that irked the establishment, but anywho… The police obtained arrest warrants charging four MOVE occupants with crimes including parole violations, contempt of court, illegal possession of firearms, and making terrorist threats. Residents of the area were evacuated from the neighborhood. They were told that they would be able to return to their homes after a twenty-four hour period.
Monday of the following week, nearly 500 police officers, along with city manager Leo Brooks, arrived in force and attempted to clear the building and execute the arrest warrants. Water and electricity was shut off in order to force MOVE members out of the house. Commissioner Sambor read a long speech addressed to MOVE members that started with, “Attention MOVE… this is America”. When the MOVE members did not respond, the police decided to forcefully remove the members from the house. Now, lets stop here for a minute… WTF!!! “This is America!!” Okay lets move on…
There was an armed standoff with police, who lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. The MOVE members fired at them and a gunfight with semi-automatic and automatic firearms ensued. Police went through over ten thousand rounds of ammunition before Commissioner Sambor ordered that the compound be bombed. From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound bombs,which the police referred to as “entry devices”made of FBI-supplied water gel explosive, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house.
The resulting explosions ignited a fire from fuel for a gasoline-powered generator in the rooftop bunker; it spread and eventually destroyed approximately 65 nearby houses. Mayor Wilson Goode later testified at a 1996 trial that he had ordered the fire to be put out after the bunker had burned. Police Commissioner Sambor said he received the order, but the fire commissioner testified that he did not receive the order. Eleven people (John Africa, five other adults, and five children aged 7 to 13) died in the resulting fire. Ramona Africa, one of the two MOVE survivors from the house, said that police fired at those trying to escape. In 1996 a federal jury ordered the city to pay a US$ 1.5 million civil suit judgement to survivor Ramona Africa and relatives of two people killed in the bombing. The jury had found that the city used excessive force and violated the members’ constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Ramona Africa, now 64, was 30 on May 13, 1985, when she and Michael Moses Ward, 13, then known as Birdie Africa, were the only two survivors of the bombing. Ward died at the age of 41 due to an accidental drowning.
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