The MOVE House Bombing 35 Years Later
May 13, 2020, is the 35th anniversary of the day Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a home in a working-class neighborhood. The resulting conflagration and police gunfire killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed 61 houses. It was a military assault designed to wipe out the MOVE organization. MOVE, a back-to-nature group founded in 1972 by John Africa, had been the subject of police harassment for years and the target of a violent attack that landed nine MOVE supporters in prison. Today, as calls for an official apology from the city grow louder, it is necessary to review what happened.