all because they wouldn't put a stop to it looong before it came to thatI remember it quite well. Bit’s difficult to believe it was almost 35 years ago......
Wow - 35 years. I was on the train that morning. We pulled into Overbrook station and you could hear automatic gunfire. People were jumping on the train that morning.
One of my co-worker’s house was burnt down in that fire. Mayor Goode’s cronies rebuilt the home and it was nothing but problems...what a time that was...
I remember that! It was the day the mayor of Philadelphia burned half his city down.
MOVE plunked itself down in the middle of this neighborhood, and almost immediately began acting like a festering boil. They stuck stereo speakers, and later loudspeakers, out the windows, broadcasting all kinds of mumbo-jumbo, sometimes all night long.
They fortified the interior of the rowhouse they occupied with railroad ties and other heavy timbers.
They broke through their attic into the crawl space above neighboring homes, and started stockpiling gasoline up there.
They all took the name "Africa." There were a lot of children living in their unit. They had been kicked out of a previous location, and relocated to their new location, in a neighborhood at the west end of Osage Avenue, near 63rd street, which separates the neighborhood from Cobbs Creek Park.
The trouble started when the City tried to evict them. They were thought to be stockpiling weapons, and the neighbors had made many complaints to the City. Their leader, John Africa (may have been the second John Africa, not sure) refused to go and said they'd rather die and destroy everything than be made to move out.
The fire was caused when the Philadelphia PD dropped a satchel charge on the roof of the MOVE building. That set fire to the stored gasoline. The police wouldn't give the fire department clearance to fight the fire, so they "let the bunker burn," in a phrase that became infamous.
I had no idea that police authorities were permitted to use explosives against civilian targets.
The best part of this raid was the airstrike!
The house my father was born in, on Osage Avenue, in 1925, was destroyed in this raid.
all because they wouldn't put a stop to it looong before it came to thatI remember that day well when I was a kid. Move and the “Africas” were truly reprehensible nasty people. Never forget that the Move scum murdered WWII and Korea War vet Officer Ramp in ‘78.
Talk about Urban Renewal
They were all named “Africa,” as I remember.
During my freshman year of college, my university allowed “Jamala Africa” to come indoctrinate all the students taking freshman English... obviously, the indoctrination didn’t take in me. It was, however, the first time I ever heard of her buddy, Mumia Abu Jamal.
As I recall the City Manager—Leo Brooks—ended up taking the heat for the mayor. Brooks was a retired Army two-star. His son just retired from the Army as a four-star.