By JOHN LESLIE
It’s been 40 years since the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the MOVE house at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia on May 13, 1985. The resulting fire and police gunfire killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed 61 homes, leaving 250 people homeless. This is the only time in U.S. history that a municipal police department has dropped a bomb on the citizens they are supposed to “protect and serve.”
The establishment narrative at the time was that the bombing was the result of a “shootout” between Black radicals and cops, but this is not true. This was a military-style attack designed to wipe out MOVE, a back-to-nature group founded in 1972 by John Africa, which had been the target of police violence and harassment for years. A previous assault in 1978 had resulted in the incarceration of nine MOVE members after the death of a cop.
Recently, The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, in cooperation with the Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting and the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University, introduced a podcast recalling the MOVE bombing and related events. This powerful series, MOVE: Untangling the Tragedy, provides rich background on the founding of MOVE and the confrontations with the racist cops of the Philadelphia Police Department. In an April 25 meeting celebrating the launch of the podcast, longtime Philadelphia reporter and journalism professor Linn Washington Jr. said, “It was not just a tragedy, it was an atrocity… It was a crime against the Black community.”
The panelists—other Black journalists who had covered events around MOVE in the 1980s—all agreed that, despite the fact that Philadelphia had a Black mayor and city manager, the bombing was an act of racism and that such a thing would never be attempted in a white neighborhood.
Washington continued, “Despite having, at that point, a decade of covering police abuses in Philadelphia, I still couldn’t believe they would go that far, and they did. The one word that I keep coming back to is ‘surreal.’ It was like urban warfare, but here we are right here in Philadelphia.”
The dress rehearsal and the MOVE 9
Several violent incidents contributed to a conflict between the police and MOVE that lasted for a decade and culminated in the 1985 bombing. A 1976 confrontation with police resulting from a neighbor’s report of an alleged disturbance brought a disproportionate response by 10 police cars and police swinging nightsticks. As police attacked Phil Africa, his wife Janine tried to intervene while holding their newborn baby, Life Africa. Police pushed Janine to the ground, and she fell on top of the baby—resulting in the baby’s death.
Police denied responsibility. In fact, they denied that the baby had ever existed because there was no government-issued birth certificate. MOVE later gathered members of the press and city officials at their house to view the baby’s body. It was this incident in particular that further escalated confrontations between MOVE and cops.
A 1978 attack on MOVE in Philadelphia’s Powelton Village neighborhood set the stage for the May 13, 1985, police bombing on Osage Avenue. Police harassment of MOVE at their house on Powelton Ave. resulted in an almost year-long siege. For 50 days, no one was allowed in or out of the house as cops attempted to starve MOVE out.
On Aug. 8, 1978, at 4 a.m., 600 cops surrounded the house as “police made the first move. Police Commissioner Joseph O’Neill ordered a bulldozer, which had a Lexan plastic shield to protect the operator from gunfire, to mow down the barricade. A long-armed ram tore the windows out of the upper floors. With the windows gone, fire hoses threw streams of water into the house” (S.A. Paolantonio: “Frank Rizzo, The last big man in big city America”).
Just after 8 a.m., shooting started, and police officer James Ramp was struck and killed by so-called friendly fire. Police fired bullets and tear gas, while water cannons sprayed 250,000 gallons of water into the house. According to Episode Two of the podcast, MOVE members, having taken refuge in the basement of the house, were standing in water “up to their noses.” The MOVE members surrendered, and cops savagely beat Delbert Africa in full view of news cameras.
Delbert Africa later recalled the incident, “I’m unconscious, and that’s when one cop pulled me by the hair across the street, one cop started jumping on my head, one started kicking me in the ribs and beating me.”
Cops claimed to find weapons in the MOVE house. Police ordered the house razed later that day, and any forensic evidence related to the standoff was destroyed in the process.
Nine MOVE members—Chuck, Delbert, Eddie, Janet, Janine, Merle, Michael, Phil, and Debbie Africa—were tried and convicted in the death of Officer Ramp, in spite of evidence that he was killed by the gunfire of other cops. MOVE founder John Africa was found not guilty on federal conspiracy and weapons charges. Three cops who participated in the beating of Delbert Africa were later acquitted. Speaking at a support rally for the three cops, the head of the FOP said, “They should have killed them all.”
While police and prosecutors insisted that MOVE had shot Ramp, The Guardianreported that “MOVE members continue to insist that they had no workable guns in their house at the time of the siege. Several months earlier, in May 1978, several guns—most of them inoperative—had been handed over to police.” According to MOVE: “Untangling the Tragedy,” Episode Two, Mayor Frank Rizzo displayed alleged MOVE guns that Washington described as “shiny and new. They looked like they just came out of a gun store.”
Members of the MOVE 9 either died in prison or were released on parole after decades. During the long years of incarceration, Merle (1998) and Phil Africa (2015) died in prison. Debbie Sims Africa was released on parole on June 16, 2018. Her husband, Michael Africa, was released in October 2018. Janet and Janine Africa were granted parole on May 14, 2019, after their legal team successfully challenged parole denials. Eddie Goodman Africa and Delbert Orr Africa were granted parole in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Chuck Sims Africa was released on parole on Feb. 7, 2020, after 41 years of imprisonment. Both Delbert and Chuck died of cancer after their release.
Osage Avenue
After the Powelton Avenue confrontation, MOVE members relocated to a house at 6221 Osage Avenue in a Black middle-class neighborhood. From the beginning, the house was under almost constant police surveillance as MOVE continued to fight for the freedom of their incarcerated comrades—the MOVE 9.
Members of the PPD Civil Affairs unit also solicited neighbors to assist in gathering information on MOVE members. In May 1984, the newly appointed police commissioner, Gregore J. Sambor, ordered the drawing up of a plan to deal with MOVE. A replica of the MOVE house was constructed, and police made numerous trial runs at detonating a bomb on the roof in order to breach the roof. SWAT officers also worked with the fire department to gauge the effects of using a “squirt” truck to deluge the roof with water.
In the run-up to May 13, police and city officials, including Wilson Goode, the city’s first Black mayor, vilified MOVE as dangerous, violent, and terrorist. A failed raid on Aug. 8, 1984, the anniversary of the Powelton Ave. attack, appears to have been an attempt to provoke a violent overreaction by MOVE. After this abortive raid, the anti-MOVE rhetoric from officials and police harassment increased.
A few days before the raid, Judge Lynne Abraham, later the district attorney of Philadelphia, signed arrest and search warrants based on the false assertion that MOVE possessed a cache of weapons and explosives. The arrest warrants were for four members of the group—Frank James Africa, Ramona Africa, Conrad Africa, and Theresa Brooks Africa. There were seven specific charges including criminal conspiracy, possession of explosives, and riot. This plan was set in motion by the police commissioner and Mayor Wilson Goode with the support and cooperation of local state and federal agencies.
“Attention MOVE, this is America…”
On Mother’s Day, May 12, police started to restrict access to the neighborhood, and residents were ordered to evacuate. Those who refused to leave were threatened with arrest. By 10 p.m., the street was locked down. The house at 6221 Osage Avenue was surrounded by 77 cops, while hundreds more kept the area cordoned off.
At 5:35 a.m. on May 13, Sambor shouted over a bullhorn, “Attention MOVE! This is America! You have to abide by the laws of the United States.”
Soon after Sambor’s ultimatum, a fire department hose truck deluged the house with 1000 gallons of water per minute to dislodge a structure on the roof that the police referred to as a “bunker.” Cops fired tear gas and smoke grenades at the house. At the same time, a team of cops entered the house next door and tried to blow holes in the wall between the two homes with plastic explosives.
From 6 a.m. until about 7:30, police fired more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition at 6221 Osage Ave. During the attack, fire trucks sprayed almost 460,000 gallons of water onto 6221 Osage over more than five hours. Police teams on either side of the house used explosives to breach the walls of the house in order to pump tear gas inside. By 10:45 a.m., nine explosions had been set off by cops. The front porches had been blown off of four houses on the street.
The bomb and its aftermath
Community members and family of MOVE members gathered on nearby streets. Activists tried reaching out to Goode, pleading for an end to the assault. The effort to dislodge the rooftop structure with the fire trucks failed, and an attempt to obtain a construction crane to do the job was reportedly vetoed by Goode because of the expense.
Police decided to drop a bomb from a state police helicopter. They referred to it as an “explosive entry device.” The bomb was no small device, containing both the explosive Tovex and about three pounds of the military demolition explosive C-4. The force of the explosion splintered the rooftop structure and ignited a fire. The fire was made worse by the presence of two gas cans on the roof.
The decision by Sambor to “let the fire burn” would result in the fire spreading and destroying 61 homes. The hands-off order was given despite the fact that fire trucks and 150 firefighters had already set up a block away. Fire crews were told to spray water on the adjoining house in order to limit the fire to 6221 Osage Ave.—but that belated action failed to halt the spread of the inferno.
MOVE members had taken refuge in the basement, but as the fire intensified it was decided to attempt to leave via a garage at the rear of the home. According to the later testimony of Birdie Africa, one of the two survivors, a MOVE adult shouted that “the kids are coming out!” Among the hundreds who gathered at the police barricades, people began to shout, “Murderers! Murderers!” Rocks and bottles were thrown, and riot police were deployed to push the crowd back.
Fleeing MOVE members were either shot dead by cops or forced to return to the house to avoid police gunfire. Six adults—Conrad Africa (36), Theresa Africa (26), Raymond Africa (50), Rhonda Africa (30, Frank Africa (26), and John Africa (54)—were killed. Additionally, five children—Tomaso Africa (9), Katricia Dotson or Tree (13-15), Zenetta Dotson (12-14), Delicia Africa (11-12), and Phil Africa (11-12)—died in the massacre. Only two survived, Ramona Africa (30) and Birdie Africa (13)*.
The following day, city officials falsely tried to claim that the majority of the gunfire came from MOVE. However, despite claims that MOVE was heavily armed, police only recovered “two pistols, a shotgun, and a .22 cal rifle” from the MOVE house (“Let It Burn,” Michael and Randi Boyette, p. 238, Quadrant Books). At the same time, the cops were equipped with 16 M-16s, Thompson submachine guns, UZI submachine guns, a 50 caliber machine gun, Browning Automatic Rifles, M-60 machine guns, and a 20MM anti-tank gun as well as handguns, sniper rifles and shotguns.
On May 22, just over a week following the attack, Mayor Goode appointed the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission, also known as the MOVE Commission, as a “board of inquiry.” Seven full-time investigators led by a former FBI agent, Neil P Shanahan, were hired to investigate the tragedy.
Public hearings began in October 1985 with testimony from police, firefighters, and community members. Goode’s handpicked commission—made up of 11 elite figures from government, the clergy, the legal profession, and academia—was lauded as a “true citizens’ commission” in Chairman William Brown III’s opening statement. However, the proceedings were described by observers as tightly controlled and intimidating, with critics calling the commission’s deliberations a whitewash. Laverne Sims, John Africa’s sister, called the commission a “farce, a circus, a ploy.”
While the commission criticized the incompetence and negligence of the city administration and individuals like Sambor and Goode, none of them was held legally accountable. The commission placed the onus for the confrontation on MOVE, which was described in the report as an “authoritarian, violence threatening cult.”
Not a single one of the perpetrators of this foul crime was held accountable—not the mayor, not Sambor, and none of the cops involved. On the other hand, Ramona Africa was convicted of riot and conspiracy and served seven years in prison.
Never forget, never forgive
Years later, in May 2020, Wilson Goode expressed support for an apology by the city for the MOVE bombing. Writing in The Guardian, Goode expressed his regret to all involved, saying, “This is the fourth time I’ve publicly apologized. My first official apology on behalf of the city came on 14 May 1985 in a televised address to the citizens of Philadelphia, to the Move family and to their neighbors. Today I would like to apologize again and extend that apology to all who experienced, and in many cases continue to experience, pain and distress from the government actions that day. They include the Move family, their neighbors, the police officers, firefighters and other public servants as well as all the citizens of Philadelphia” (my emphasis).
But Goode’s recollection about earlier apologies was false. In reality, on the day after the slaughter, May 14, 1985, Goode spoke to the press several times. He portrayed the police assault as a necessity, saying, “If I had to make the decision all over again, knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision because I think we cannot permit any terrorist group, any revolutionary group in this city, to hold a neighborhood or a whole city hostage, And we have to send that message out loud and clear, over and over again.”
In 2020, despite Goode’s recent statement of contrition, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke both opposed issuing an official apology for this gross violation of human rights. However, on Nov. 12, 2020, following the nationwide upsurge over the police killing of George Floyd, the city council finally issued a formal apology for the bombing. Now, five years later, the city council has established May 13 as an official day of reflection and remembrance.
It is important to learn from the events of May 13, 1985. In the current atmosphere of police impunity and increasing state repression, the lessons of the MOVE bombing can help guide us toward rejecting and resisting state violence while taking steps to achieve a more just society. Part of the process of accountability is exposing those responsible. Unfortunately, the main actors in this tragedy, Goode and Sambor, are now deceased, having lived long lives as free men instead of in prison.
In 2021, it was revealed that the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Princeton University’s anthropology department had held remains of Delicia Africa and Tree Africa for decades for purposes of “study.” This sparked outrage in the community and demands for the return of the remains. Additionally, in 2017, it was revealed that City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley had ordered the remains to be cremated and disposed of without notifying the Africa family. Farley was forced to resign amid a public outcry. In 2024, additional remains thought to be those of Delicia Africa were found during an inventory at the Penn Museum and returned to MOVE.
According to Mike Africa Jr., “I’ve learned, with my team, that the Penn Museum is not only responsible for stealing the remains of Katrina and Delicia. … We know that they’re not being honest and forthright because our documentation indicates that there is a third set of remains.” In addition to demanding the return of all remains, Mike Africa Jr. and MOVE are demanding the return of 6221 Osage Ave. (a new building now stands there) to create a memorial to the victims.
*Michael Moses Ward, AKA Birdie Africa, died in 2013 at the age of 41.
