The Tragic True Story Of How Philadelphia Bombed Its Residents In 1985

On the afternoon of May 13, 1985, the city of Philadelphia did the unthinkable and dropped a bomb on one of its own residential neighborhoods. City officials claimed that the bomb was dropped as a result of a civil eviction, but the incident was part of a planned effort to "liquidate the MOVE organization" after years of assault. The bomb ended up causing a fire that destroyed and damaged over 100 houses and left over 200 Philadelphia residents homeless.

Before the bombing, the city of Philadelphia regularly antagonized MOVE members by shutting off the water and power to their homes and refusing to pick up the trash. Meanwhile, MOVE loudly demonstrated for animal rights, racial justice, and environmental protections. 

Despite the best efforts of government officials and police officers, MOVE wasn't completely exterminated and they have continued their campaign to free political prisoners in the United States, many of whom are MOVE members like Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 2020, the city of Philadelphia issued a "formal apology" for the bombing. This is the tragic true story of how Philadelphia bombed its residents in 1985.

Even though the government later used neighbor complaints to justify the 1985 bombing, MOVE's relationship with their neighbors was a complicated one. Residents of Powelton Village shared many of MOVE's countercultural values and many were activists and protestors. But according to West Philadelphia Collective History, sometimes the residents of Powelton Village thought that MOVE was going too far. As a form of composting, MOVE disposed of all their trash in the backyard. And when the refuse attracted rats and cockroaches, MOVE refused to remove them since they considered there to be no distinction between human rights and animal rights.

But while they weren't necessarily "ideal neighbors," the community upheld one another. According to Mumia Abu-Jamal, when the Philadelphia police cut off the MOVE house's electricity and water during their siege, "people from the neighborhood and supporters from the city supplied MOVE with the basic necessities."

According to "The MOVE Crisis in Philadelphia" by Hizkias Assefa and Paul Wahrhaftig, tensions mounted when some of MOVE's neighbors went to a zoning board hearing to oppose MOVE's application for a dog kennel permit. The neighbors later complained that some MOVE members had "verbally harassed them."

After this incident, MOVE members started taking the position that although MOVE was non-violent, they would "counter with violence if attacked." However, Mayor Frank Rizzo considered MOVE to be a terrorist organization almost from its inception. And when MOVE started focusing on police brutality in 1974, this led to increased confrontations with police. According to "The MOVE Crisis in Philadelphia," it's believed that in 1975, over a 7-month period, "MOVE members had been arrested on misdemeanor charges more than 150 times, fined $15,000, and sentenced to several years in jail."

City officials repeatedly tried to enter the house in 1977 to inspect the living conditions, but MOVE refused to allow them to enter, stating that "any inspection violates the sanctity of our home, and we will consider any incursion as a declaration of war." 

MOVE members barricaded themselves inside the house while police surveilled them around the clock with at least 100 plainclothes officers. Several MOVE members who were captured were charged and convicted of conspiracy charges over the next year. In March 1978, Mayor Rizzo decided to blockade the house and "deny MOVE access to city water" in an attempt to drive the people out of the house.

In 1980, the nine MOVE members who were convicted of Ramp's death received 30 to 100 years in prison. The last incarcerated member was released on parole on February 7, 2020. 

By 1982, MOVE had created a new headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. But their repeated demands for the release of their imprisoned members over a loudspeaker once more led to frustrations with their neighbors. And according to "The MOVE Crisis in Philadelphia," MOVE wasn't trying to refrain from antagonizing their neighbors. They believed that by alienating the neighbors, they could "bring the city to the point of confrontation or compromise" in order to negotiate the release of the MOVE 9 arrested as a result of the 1978 eviction.

However, the city repeatedly ignored the complaints of the neighbors, and although the city later claimed that the 1985 bombing was simply the result of a civil eviction, as Mumia Abu-Jamal has stated, "You don't attempt to evict people from their homes with dynamite. You don't evacuate the whole neighborhood at 7 o'clock in the morning if all you want is an eviction ... This was a premeditated attempt to liquidate the MOVE organization."

SWAT teams tried and failed to blast holes into the MOVE house and the police repeatedly set off explosions trying to enter the building. But no one was getting in and no one was coming out. Police yelled repeatedly through the loudspeakers "Attention MOVE: This is America!" This lasted throughout the day until Goode gave the "go-ahead to drop a makeshift bomb on the MOVE compound in an attempt to destroy the bunker on its roof" at 5:27 PM, 12 hours after the siege started. 

According to "The MOVE Crisis in Philadelphia," the bomb was dropped atop the bunker on the top of the MOVE house in an attempt to dislodge it. "It failed to dislodge the bunker immediately, but it ignited the gasoline tank and started a fire."

While former police officers claim that "the bomb missed its intended target," Mumia Abu-Jamal claims that "that's the impression that they would like you to have. In fact, it was deeply planned at least a year in advance, and they achieved a lot of their objectives." Six MOVE adult members, including founder John Africa, and five MOVE children died as a result of the fire.

With the attack broadcast live throughout the day, countless people questioned the decisions made by police and Mayor Goode. In response, Mayor Goode established an 11-person commission to independently investigate what had happened with the MOVE bombing.

On March 6, 1986, the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission issued its findings. According to "The MOVE Crisis in Philadelphia," the commission discovered that only four MOVE members in the house had warrants out for their arrest out of the 13 MOVE members in the house. The commission also reported that there had been practically no attempt at negotiations. In addition, the commission discovered that "once the house was on fire some members and children tried to escape from the building, but were prevented by police gunfire."

The commission describes the actions of the police and the mayor as "grossly negligent" and "unconscionable" and went on to recommend that the entire incident be fully investigated by the United States Department of Justice and the District Attorney. Meanwhile, Goode was re-elected as mayor in 1986.

After the fire, the remaining members of MOVE lived in various houses around Philadelphia, keeping a low profile and focusing on the release of the MOVE 9 and Mumia Abu-Jamal. The remaining residents of the neighborhood who'd lost their homes were then subjected to a "scandalously long delay and ineptitude" when it came to replacing the destroyed houses.

Initially, the city had planned to resettle the 253 homeless residents by Christmas, 1985. But by Christmas, only five new homes had been built. The homes were finally built and ready for occupancy by the summer of 1986, but they were so poorly constructed that within the first year roofs were leaking, beams were sagging, and walls were cracking. According to The New York Times, the two building contractors hired by the Goode administration were charged with stealing over $200,000 in city funds during the rebuilding.

By 2000, the city realized that it would cost $10 million to renovate the houses in order to meet building-code standards, which would also raise the average cost of each house to over $400,000. Deciding that it was cheaper for the city "to purchase and board up the houses until someone could figure out what to do with them," the city bought 36 of the houses at $150,000 each. Many remained boarded up for years until 2020 when all 36 houses were finally rebuilt.

In April 2021, it was revealed that some of the remains of two girls who died in the bombing, Katricia Dotson (Tree Africa) and Delisha Africa, were never reunited with their families. Instead, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the bones of the two children were given to anthropologists Alan Mann and Janet Monge for analysis and to reportedly confirm the children's identity at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. But even after the identities were confirmed, the bones were kept instead of being reunited with their families. Carolyn Rouse, the chair of Princeton's anthropology department, claimed that "nobody came to claim the remains," conveniently ignoring the fact that Delisha's parents were imprisoned at the time.

According to Billy Penn, Mann and Monge reportedly maintained possession of the bones for decades, with Monge even going as far as to use the bones "as teaching materials in a public online forensics course."

After the story broke about the Penn Museum keeping the bones, a spokesperson for Penn Museum released a statement claiming that the remains in the museum's possession were given back to the Africa Family on July 2, 2021. They also claimed that the Tucker Law Group's independent investigation determined that they only had a single set of remains as opposed to two. However, due to the "bungled chain of custody," according to Hyperallergic, it's argued that the City of Philadelphia should do its own investigation.