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I was living in Philadelphia when this happened. Wilson Goode had been Philadelphia's first A-A mayor for a little more than one year when it hit the fan. Destroyed an entire city block of homes in an area that was heavily populated by working-class Black people. I remember driving through that neighborhood, three or four year before MOVE. All rowhouses, many with a fence around their tiny front yards, most with green plastic outdoor carpeting going up the front door steps, most very nicely kept up.

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.