The 1985 MOVE Bombing

When a City Bombed Itself and the Lingering Fight for Justice

AI Audio Overview

Overview

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped military explosives from a helicopter onto a residential row house, killing eleven people including five children and destroying an entire Black neighborhood. This unprecedented act of state violence against American citizens has undergone a dramatic narrative transformation over four decades – from initial portrayals of justified police action against “radicals” to contemporary recognition as one of the most egregious examples of systemic racism and police brutality in modern American history. The bombing of MOVE headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue represents not merely a tragic isolated incident, but a crystallization of how institutional power structures can normalize extreme violence against Black communities while evading accountability through narrative control.

MOVE emerged from Black liberation and environmental activism

MOVE was founded in 1972 by Vincent Leaphart, a Korean War veteran from West Philadelphia who renamed himself John Africa and developed a revolutionary philosophy combining Black liberation theology with radical environmental activism. Born into poverty and labeled “orthogenically backward” by a racist educational system that relegated him to schools for “slow learners,” Leaphart channeled his experiences of systemic oppression into “The Guidelines of John Africa” – a 300-page manifesto dictated to white social worker Donald Glassey between 1968 and 1974. The text, typed entirely in capital letters without punctuation to reject “synthetic education,” presented a dualistic worldview pitting natural law against “the System” of government, industry, and modern civilization.

The organization’s practices reflected this philosophy through communal living, raw food diets, rejection of modern technology and medicine, and fierce advocacy for all living beings including rats and cockroaches. All members adopted the surname “Africa” to honor their ancestral continent and symbolically took the age of “1” to represent rebirth. MOVE combined elements of the Black Panthers’ revolutionary politics with anarcho-primitivist environmentalism, creating what one scholar called “a strange fusion of black power and flower power.” Their initial headquarters in Philadelphia’s liberal Powelton Village neighborhood generated complex community relationships – some neighbors appreciated MOVE’s community services like helping elderly residents and mediating gang conflicts, while others complained about composting odors, roaming animals, and bullhorn lectures disrupting the peace.

The crucial turning point came with the 1978 confrontation that killed Officer James Ramp. After neighbors’ complaints led to a court eviction order, Mayor Frank Rizzo imposed a months-long blockade of MOVE’s Powelton Village compound. On August 8, 1978, hundreds of police surrounded the house with heavy equipment and water cannons, flooding the basement where MOVE members had taken refuge with their children. During the ensuing shootout, Officer Ramp was killed by a bullet to the back of the neck – MOVE claimed the trajectory proved friendly fire, but nine members were convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to 30-100 years in prison. The “MOVE 9” imprisonment became the organization’s central cause when remaining members relocated to 6221 Osage Avenue in the middle-class Black neighborhood of Cobbs Creek in 1982, where they broadcast demands for their release via bullhorn day and night while building fortress-like bunkers on the roof.

The bombing decision reflected systematic dehumanization

The events of May 13, 1985 began at dawn when Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor addressed MOVE through a bullhorn with words that would become infamous: “Attention MOVE: This is America. You have to abide by the laws of the United States.” After a 15-minute ultimatum expired, police fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes while the fire department blasted the house with water cannons shooting 1,000 gallons per minute. When conventional tactics failed after eight hours, Sambor and Managing Director Leo Brooks made the fateful decision to bomb the bunker despite knowing the house contained gasoline and explosives.

The bomb itself revealed the operation’s military character – two tubes of Tovex mining explosive combined with 1¼ pounds of C-4 military explosive supplied illegally by the FBI months earlier. Lt. Frank Powell, exhausted after nine hours under fire, assembled the device and dropped it from a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter at 5:28 PM, creating a football-sized hole in the roof. Flames immediately erupted from gasoline generators and gas cans visible in photographs taken before the bombing. The most unconscionable decision came next: Sambor and Fire Commissioner William Richmond chose to “let the fire burn” as a tactical weapon to force MOVE members out, delaying firefighting for four hours while flames spread to adjoining homes.

Commissioner Richmond later testified that “the plan was then to drive the people out of the house” and firefighting was deliberately withheld “for that reason.” The Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission would later call this decision “reckless, ill-conceived and hastily approved,” finding that “none of this would have ever happened had the MOVE house and its occupants been situated in a comparable white neighborhood.” Mayor Wilson Goode, Philadelphia’s first Black mayor, approved the bombing after being told it was an “explosive device” rather than a bomb, later claiming ignorance about its true nature despite authorizing unprecedented police violence against his own constituents.

Multiple perspectives reveal institutional failure

The question of responsibility generates starkly different narratives that persist today. City officials portrayed their actions as reluctant responses to terrorism – Mayor Goode and Commissioner Sambor officially classified MOVE as a “terrorist organization,” and Sambor testified he had “no choice” given MOVE’s armed resistance. Police claimed they fired at MOVE members attempting to escape the burning building to prevent armed individuals from threatening officers. The grand jury, while calling officials’ behavior “morally reprehensible,” found no criminal intent warranting prosecution, accepting the narrative that MOVE brought destruction upon themselves through their refusal to surrender.

MOVE members and supporters present a fundamentally different reality. Survivor Ramona Africa testified that “we tried several times to get out, but each time we were shot back into the house,” indicating police intended no survivors. She emphasizes that MOVE faced capital punishment without trial for non-capital offenses, asking “what was the hurry?” when police could have simply maintained a siege. MOVE’s perspective frames the bombing as systematic oppression of a Black liberation organization that challenged “the System” too effectively, part of the same pattern that destroyed the Black Panthers and other revolutionary movements. Contemporary scholarship increasingly supports this interpretation, with academics noting that MOVE’s treatment exemplified how state power criminalizes alternative lifestyles and ideologies that threaten existing hierarchies.

Neighbors occupied a complex middle ground – many had complained for years about MOVE’s disruptive practices and felt the city abandoned them, yet they never imagined their complaints would justify bombing their neighborhood. Gerald Renfrow, whose home was destroyed, later reflected on the bitter irony that Black middle-class residents seeking city intervention against Black radicals inadvertently enabled the destruction of their own community. The Commission’s finding that this would never happen in a white neighborhood resonated deeply with residents who realized their property rights and citizenship meant less than their race in determining acceptable police tactics.

The aftermath revealed systematic injustice

The bombing killed eleven MOVE members: six adults including founder John Africa, and five children – Tree Africa (14), Delisha Africa (12), Netta Africa (11), Little Phil Africa (10), and Tomaso Africa (7). Only two survived: adult Ramona Africa, who suffered severe burns, and 13-year-old Birdie Africa (Michael Moses Ward), who emerged naked and burned from the inferno in an image that shocked even hardened officers. The fire destroyed 61 homes across two city blocks, displacing 250 residents who were told they could return after 24 hours but instead lost everything.

The legal aftermath exemplified American criminal justice’s racial disparities. Despite two grand jury investigations and a commission finding “gross negligence” and “unconscionable” actions by top officials, no city official faced criminal charges. The only person prosecuted was Ramona Africa, the bombing’s victim, who served seven years in prison for riot and conspiracy. Civil lawsuits eventually brought some financial accountability – $1.5 million to Ramona Africa in 1996, $1.7 million to Birdie Africa, $25 million total to the families of the five dead children, and $12.83 million to displaced residents in 2005. The city’s rebuilding efforts became another scandal when contractor Edward Edwards went to prison for stealing $130,000, leaving residents with houses featuring leaking roofs, buckling ceilings, and missing support beams that required decades of additional litigation to address.

The human cost extended far beyond immediate casualties. Birdie Africa struggled with trauma his entire life, dying at 41 in 2013 from drowning in a cruise ship hot tub after acute alcohol intoxication. The Osage Avenue neighborhood endured decades as a ghost town of boarded houses and urban blight, with remaining residents describing living in perpetual limbo. Recent revelations that the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton kept victims’ remains for anthropology courses without family knowledge, and that the city cremated remains in 2017 without notification, demonstrate how institutional disrespect for Black bodies continues generations after death.

Media narratives shifted from justification to condemnation

The evolution of MOVE’s story from “radicals who brought violence upon themselves” to “victims of unconscionable state violence” reveals how power shapes historical memory. Initial coverage employed dehumanizing language – the New York Times headlined “POLICE DROP BOMB ON RADICALS’ HOME,” while officials calling MOVE “terrorists” shaped public perception so effectively that 61% of both Black and white Philadelphians initially approved Mayor Goode’s handling. Media outlets used passive voice and euphemisms, describing the bomb as an “entry device” and portraying the fire as an unfortunate accident rather than a deliberate tactical decision.

The narrative began shifting in the 1990s as legal victories contradicted official justifications and academic scholarship placed the bombing within broader contexts of police brutality and environmental racism. The 2013 documentary “Let the Fire Burn” proved transformative by using only archival footage without narration, allowing the horror to speak for itself. Viewers expressed shock at never hearing about American police bombing civilians, recognizing parallels to military operations abroad being deployed against Black communities at home. Contemporary scholarship now analyzes the bombing as environmental racism – the deliberate targeting of Black neighborhoods with toxic violence that would never occur in white areas.

Modern reassessments connect MOVE to patterns visible from Tulsa’s Black Wall Street massacre to contemporary police killings. The bombing exemplifies police militarization, showing how military equipment and tactics acquired for foreign wars inevitably target domestic populations, particularly Black communities. Educational curricula now include MOVE within units on state violence and systemic racism, with Mike Africa Jr. (born in prison to MOVE 9 parents) working with Philadelphia schools to ensure accurate teaching. The transformation from “cult extremists” to “revolutionary family targeted for their beliefs” represents broader reckonings with how official narratives obscure state violence against Black liberation movements.

Primary sources complicate simple narratives

Extensive documentary evidence reveals multiple, sometimes contradictory truths about the bombing. Temple University’s Urban Archives houses 29 cubic feet of Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission materials including over 900 interviews, hearing transcripts, police communications, and video footage. These records preserve testimonies like Lt. Frank Powell’s admission that he “never dropped a bomb out of a helicopter” and worried “what happens if I miss?” – revealing the operation’s improvised, reckless nature. Commissioner Sambor’s claim that the bomb was a “conservative and safe approach” stands in stark contrast to Fire Commissioner Richmond’s testimony that he wasn’t informed about the bombing plan until that afternoon.

Survivor accounts provide crucial counter-narratives to official versions. Ramona Africa consistently testified that MOVE members tried repeatedly to escape but were “shot back into the house,” directly contradicting police claims of self-defense. Birdie Africa’s childhood testimony revealed MOVE children were essentially captives who “were always planning ways to run away, but we were too little.” His account complicates narratives of MOVE as either loving family or dangerous cult, showing children trapped between an organization they feared and a system that would ultimately bomb them.

The most significant gap remains the silence of the police bomb unit, whose members refused to testify before the commission despite subpoenas, invoking Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. This silence speaks volumes about consciousness of guilt among those who executed the bombing. Similarly, the voices of the eleven dead MOVE members remain forever absent from the record, their final thoughts and attempts to escape known only through Ramona Africa’s testimony and the physical evidence of their bodies found huddled together, some shielding children as the inferno consumed them.

Modern understanding reveals continuing injustices

Today, the MOVE bombing stands as a watershed moment in understanding American state violence against Black communities, referenced alongside police killings that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Ramona Africa explicitly connected MOVE to contemporary police brutality in 2016, stating these incidents keep “happening today because it wasn’t stopped in ’85.” The bombing provides historical precedent for modern concerns about police militarization, showing how equipment and tactics developed for war zones inevitably target marginalized communities deemed threats to social order.

The 2020 Philadelphia City Council apology, while symbolically important, came 35 years late and without criminal accountability or adequate reparations. The 2021 discovery that universities kept child victims’ remains for decades, using them in forensic courses without family consent, revealed how institutional violence extends beyond death through the commodification of Black bodies for academic purposes. Mike Africa Jr.’s 2023 purchase of 6221 Osage Avenue to create a memorial represents community-led efforts to reclaim narrative control and ensure remembrance when institutions prefer forgetting.

Contemporary analysis positions the bombing within what scholars term the “carceral state” – the network of policing, imprisonment, and surveillance targeting Black communities. MOVE’s treatment exemplified how the state criminalizes poverty, alternative lifestyles, and challenges to capitalist property relations. Their environmental activism and animal rights advocacy, dismissed as extremism in 1985, now appear prescient given climate crisis and ecological collapse. The bombing ultimately reveals how violence becomes normalized through bureaucratic language and procedural justification – officials spoke of “entry devices” and “tactical necessities” while incinerating children.

A reckoning with state terror remains incomplete

The 1985 MOVE bombing represents the only time American law enforcement dropped military explosives on civilians, yet its relatively obscurity compared to incidents like Waco or Ruby Ridge involving white groups reveals how racial violence gets memory-holed from national consciousness. The complete absence of criminal accountability despite eleven deaths including five children demonstrates how systemic racism operates through procedural immunities that protect state actors while criminalizing their victims. Ramona Africa serving seven years in prison while officials who bombed her home faced no consequences exemplifies American justice’s racial double standards.

The narrative transformation from justified police action to recognized state terrorism took decades of activism, scholarship, and documentary evidence to achieve. This evolution shows both the power of official narratives to obscure violence and the possibility of counter-narratives to eventually reveal truth. Yet transformation remains incomplete – no federal investigation or congressional hearings have examined the bombing, no national memorial exists, and many Americans remain unaware it happened. The recent discoveries of mishandled remains prove that disrespect for Black life continues through institutional practices that would provoke national outrage if applied to white victims.

The MOVE bombing ultimately asks fundamental questions about American democracy: How can a city bomb its own citizens with impunity? Why does military equipment flow from foreign battlefields to domestic police departments? What ideologies justify incinerating children to serve arrest warrants? The answers reveal uncomfortable truths about whose lives matter, whose neighborhoods can be destroyed, and whose stories get told. Until America fully reckons with the MOVE bombing – through criminal accountability, comprehensive reparations, and honest historical memory – the same systemic forces that enabled dropping bombs on Black Philadelphia remain ready to deploy against communities that challenge existing power structures. The ghost of 6221 Osage Avenue haunts not just Philadelphia but an entire nation built on normalized violence against Black life, demanding recognition that state terror is not distant history but continuing reality requiring urgent transformation.