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1. On a Monday, like today, May 13, 1985, a major U.S. city dropped a bomb on its own residents. My first political memory was this, the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, 34 years ago today.
2. The context was that members of MOVE, a political resistance organization that lived together, had annoyed neighbors for four years. Uncollected trash, loud political messages, and the neighborhoods general disdain for MOVE’s lifestyle had produce numerous complaints.
3. The city’s response had been to label the group a terrorist organization. On that day, they evacuated the nearby residents for 24 hours, anticipating a potential standoff. They got what they expected.
4. The city manager began the siege by announcing over a bullhorn “Attention MOVE...This is America.” Roughly 500 city police officers were on scene, sending tear gas into the MOVE buildings while the city shut off water and electricity to compel members to leave the house.
5. The goal was to serve 4 search warrants. 11 people from MOVE eventually died in the standoff, including 5 children under 14 years old. After an exchange of gunfire including 10,000 police rounds, police ordered that two bombs be dropped on MOVE’s complex on Osage Avenue.
6. The fire eventually consumed more than 60 nearby houses. Despite the Mayor and Police Commissioner claiming they ordered the fire put out, the city Fire Commissioner claims that order never arrived.
7. Additionally, a special investigation found that, “Police gunfire in the rear alley prevented the escape from the fire of some occupants of the MOVE house.”
8. That investigation also concluded that, “The Mayor's failure to call a halt to the operation...when he knew that children were in the house, was grossly negligent and clearly risked the lives of those children.”
9. Still, while the only surviving adult member of MOVE, Ramona Africa, was convicted and sentenced to jail time, no public officials were ever charged.
10. The incident fundamentally shaped how many of us understood state power to function. Known since as “The City That Bombed Itself,” growing up in and near Philadelphia meant knowing that the city might use military tactics against those deemed a threat.
11. And it was the city’s first Black Mayor that ordered it. How on earth could that be real life? Trying to come to grips with all of that fundamentally shaped my political consciousness as well as the city that I love so much.
12. So every year, on this date, I ask folks to remember—or learn for the first time—about that time a U.S. city dropped a bomb on its own residents and let that fire burn. 34 years is not long ago. And if we hope to avoid repeating this history, we will need to learn from it.
