MOVE

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MOVE is an organization formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1972 by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart) and Donald Glassey described by CNN as "a loose-knit, mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a back-to-nature lifestyle and preached against technology." The dreadlocked members also disrupted meetings and lectures by personalities as varied as Jane Fonda and Buckminster Fuller.

Contents 1 Confrontations With Police 1.1 Accusations of Assault, 1970s 1.2 Powelton Village, 1978 1.3 Osage Avenue, 1985 1.3.1 Background 1.3.2 Confrontation Leads Police to Bomb MOVE House 1.3.3 Aftermath 1.3.4 References in Music 1.3.5 References in Print 2 See also 3 External links 4 Further reading

[edit] Confrontations With Police

[edit] Accusations of Assault, 1970s

Before the infamous events at Powellton Village and Osage Avenue, Mario Africa of MOVE, in an early 1970s interview, stated that many of their members were beaten by police during peaceful protests. He claimed that many of the victims were pregnant women, causing miscarriage, and young children ("When they raided the MOVE house, they would throw babies over banisters from the second to first floor of the home")[1].

[edit] Powelton Village, 1978

Glassey owned a large twin house at 33rd and Pearl Sts. in the Powelton Village neighborhood of Philadelphia, and it became the first home base for MOVE. The members erected a fence along the front and sides of the house and established a curb-side carwash business. Neighbors allegedly began to complain about the sanitation aspects of their back to nature philosophy and their use of bullhorns to lecture and admonish authority.

MOVE refused access to health inspectors and other state and city officials. The situation escalated until the members one evening marched along the fencing carrying rifles. In response, Mayor Frank Rizzo ordered a blockade of the immediate neighborhood, in order to prevent food and supplies from reaching MOVE and thus force the members out of the house. However, since the blockade was announced in advance, supporters were able to bring in large supplies of food. (It was also later discovered that MOVE members had dug a tunnel through to Powelton Ave., outside the police perimeter.)^{[citation needed]}

The blockade lasted several weeks, during which time residents of a roughly two-square-block area had to show identification to reach their homes. Several hundred members of the police department were involved in the action. The MOVE members ultimately refused to meet the city's demands, and on August 8, 1978, Philadelphia police attempted to clear the house by force. The inhabitants of the house hid in the basement to avoid police bullets, and the police flooded the basement with firehoses. In his book All Things Censored, Mumia Abu-Jamal writes that during the trial of the MOVE 9, "one policeman testified how he stood looking into the basement window of the now-demolished headquarters, peering at Chuck Africa trying to stand up amid swirling, rushing waters pumped into the house by water cannons, and opened fire, point-blank, emptying his pistol" [2].

Who began shooting is disputed; MOVE claims that they never fired a shot. However, one police officer, James Ramp, was killed and several other police and firefighters were wounded by gunfire. A police ballistics expert, civilian Anthony L. Paul, testified that tests showed that a semiautomatic, clip-loading rifle found inside the MOVE house was the weapon used to shoot Ramp and two other officers. That weapon, a .223 Ruger, had been observed in the possession of at least one MOVE member in the basement that day. Police and firefighters also testified that they saw all five male defendants with guns shortly before the shooting. Prosecutors also said a "palm print" on a federal firearms purchase form demonstrated that the rifle, as well as two others, had been bought by MOVE member William Phillips, known to members and supporters of the group as Phil Africa, before the shoot-out with police. But disputing evidence shows that Ramp was shot in the back of the neck from downward angle, making murder impossible [3]. In all, police seized 11 rifles and handguns from the compound and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. No members of MOVE were holding weapons when arrested.

A few hours following this incident, Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo had the house demolished as it was deemed uninhabitable due to health code violations, destroying most of the evidence.

On May 4, 1980, Judge Malmed pronounced the nine members of MOVE (the MOVE 9) guilty and sentenced them for 30-100 years for the third degree murder of Officer Ramp. When Malmed was a guest a few days later on a talk radio show, Mumia Abu-Jamal called in and asked him who killed Ramp. The Judge replied: "I haven't the faintest idea." He explained that since "they call themselves a family, I sentenced them as a family." [4]

[edit] Osage Avenue, 1985

[edit] Background

The MOVE group then moved to a house in West Philadelphia owned by Louise James, a relative of a MOVE member. They continued their back to nature philosophy, and added a new agenda – freeing the MOVE 9. In a change from their previous tactic of staging protests downtown, MOVE began to pressure their neighbors, in predominantly African-American working-class West Philadelphia. The Osage Avenue houses were connected, and their roofs formed a convenient jogging track for MOVE. Neighbors listened to the MOVE physical training program through their bedroom ceilings in the morning; this was soon joined by MOVE's loud speaker system, broadcasting political diatribes for hours at a time that were laced with profanity. Mayoral candidate W. Wilson Goode promised to correct the problem ; however when he became Philadelphia's first African American mayor in November of 1983 the situation on Osage Avenue did not change.

[edit] Confrontation Leads Police to Bomb MOVE House

On May 13, 1985, in a failed attempt to serve arrest warrants on four members of the group, Philadelphia police became engaged in a gun battle at MOVE's communal residence. The mayor had, in response to pressure from the neighborhood that included a threat to use "vigilante justice," turned over the situation to the police commissioner with the instructions to find a way to arrest the MOVE members. At this point it became a police matter and an entry plan was drawn up under the direction of Police Commissioner Sambor.

The plan called for a mixture of civilian and military explosives to be dropped on the fortification that had been built by MOVE on top of the house in order to destroy it. The satchel of explosives, alternately characterized as a "bomb" and an "entry device," was to be dropped on MOVE's rooftop structure from a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter. The fortification was also described as either a "gun turret" or a purely defensive fortification. The structure was officially unoccupied at the time the bomb was dropped, although there were a number of people squatting in the house.

The bomb did not significantly damage the rooftop structure, but did ignite several barrels of gasoline, clearly marked "fuel," starting a fire which destroyed the entire block and killed eleven people. City hoses, deployed as a part of the original entry plan, were not turned on until forty five minutes after the fire started burning. Ironically, the city's best firefighting equipment had been trained on the rooftop bunker all morning, but "the decision was made to let the fire burn" in the words of Sambor. Firefighters on the scene claimed that the extensive use of hydrant water prior to the bombing had reduced pressure in the system so much that equipment could not be deployed. Police also stopped firefighters from taking preventive measures such as chopping down the wooden connecting porch roofs by which the fire spread between adjacent buildings. Police stated that firefighters were denied access to the area out of concern for their safety but there is no evidence that house residents fired on any rescue workers after the bomb was dropped.

About ten thousand rounds of ammunition were fired by the police into the house. Sixty two houses burned to the ground; only Ramona Africa and Michael Ward (aka Birdie Africa) escaped alive. Six adults and five children in the MOVE house were killed. William H. Brown 3d, the lawyer who chaired the investigating commission in the aftermath, has been quoted as saying "I firmly believe that more people got out than Birdie and Ramona [and didn't survive] - that's one thing that still nags at me."

Police initially said they had been fired upon first with automatic weapons, but only a small number of non-automatic weapons were found in the burned-out home. MOVE supporters have described the raid as a revenge attack for the 1978 shooting.

[edit] Aftermath

In the aftermath of the catastrophe the city launched a special investigation which found, among other things, that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable." The mayor was re-elected in the next election, and no police officer was fined, fired or suspended.

Philadelphia has paid over $32 million to the victims, including $840,000 to Michael Ward, $1.5 million to Ramona Africa and the relatives of John and Frank Africa, and has been ordered to pay $29 million to residents of Osage Avenue and Pine Street whose homes were destroyed by the fire, and their replacement had to be torn down later. (The city of Philadelphia, now under former Philadelphia City Council President and now Mayor John F. Street, is appealing the latter award.)

On December 1, 2005, U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam cut the original jury verdict of $12.8 million in more than half, to $6 million.

[edit] References in Music

In the song Sunset on 32nd, the Virginia-based punk band Strike Anywhere references the assault on the MOVE house in the line "When they dropped the bomb on the building to kill a MOVEment / Did they care where the rights of the murdered went?"

Operation M.O.V.E. by Leftöver Crack is about the events surrounding the group and the fire. "Friendly fire kills officer dead / The M.O.V.E. nine are framed up instead".

Philadelphia by Atom and his Package contains the lyric "And we only bombed our own city once, one time."

Mumia's Song by Anti-Flag also mentions the MOVE 9.

No Justice, No Peace by Aus Rotten mentions MOVE 9 and Mumia Abu Jamal.

Also, in the song Untitled by Jedi Mind Tricks, Vinnie Paz states "Jedi Mind bombin' your MOVEs like John Africa." In another song Paz states, "From the city where they freed Mumia run up on the cops with flames and heaters"

No Justice, No Peace by Aus Rotten mentions the MOVE 9: "Our judicial system's a fucking lie / They'll keep them there until they die / They're victims of the corrupt legal system we ignore / Like Leonard Peltier, Geronimo Pratt, The Move9, and Richard Moore / only crime committed is their mere existence."

The track "Watermelon City" by Elizabeth Alexander on the DJ /rupture album Special Gunpowder makes reference to the Osage Avenue bombing.

The song Be Careful Tonight by local Philadelphia band Beru Revue makes mention of MOVE.

"Save a City..." by Mischief Brew

[edit] References in Print

Pamphlet Architecture 23 - Move: Sites of Trauma by Johanna Saleh Dickson

Philadelphia Fire, by John Edgar Wideman, is a novel published in 1990 in which Cudjoe, a writer and voluntary exile, returns to his old neighborhood to track down the one survivor of the fire, a young boy.

[edit] See also

• Ramona Africa
• Green Anarchism
• Anarcho-primitivism

Also mentioned in "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross

[edit] External links

• CNN article
• Report of the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (AKA the "MOVE Commission")
• "John Africa's MOVE Organization"
• "25 Years on the MOVE"
• 6221 Osage Ave. from Google Maps
• Alice Walker's Thoughts about MOVE and the bombing
• "A Basic History of the 1985 MOVE Bombing: Rogue Police and Weak Leadership"
• MOVE on a political support website
• Mindfully.org's scan of a New York Times story on the bombing
• Philadelphia Inquirer "20 Years After" retrospective story on the bombing

[edit] Further reading

• 20 years on the MOVE, MOVE, Philadelphia. 1996, 72p.